


Bonding With Danger

by ButWhatIfThereWasChiley



Category: Power Rangers, Power Rangers Dino Charge
Genre: (Not tons but some...), Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Character Death, Easter Eggs and Cameos everywhere, M/M, No OCs - Just Power Rangers Characters, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2019-07-14 08:28:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 27,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16036724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ButWhatIfThereWasChiley/pseuds/ButWhatIfThereWasChiley
Summary: When a young Ilvermorny student transfers to Hogwarts, he thinks he has the opportunity of a lifetime, but quickly finds he's tied up in events much bigger than himself.The Chiley Hogwarts AU you never knew you wanted. Saying that, Chiley is more the side plot to the main story which is about all the characters: it's from Riley's point of view mostly so things just tend to gravitate towards Chase.





	1. Chapter 1

**Prologue**

Dark clouds swelled in the sky as a cloaked figure hurried towards the highest point of the mountain, persevering in spite of the ground shifting beneath his feet and the chilling winds that felt like needles in his skin. Forcing himself through another overgrown thorn bush, his endurance was renewed by the sight of a dark purple hue lining the mountain top. Yet not a hundred steps later, the man was dragging himself along the spiralling path, leaving behind a trail of bloody hand prints. It was irrelevant; he was numb to the pain at this point. The waves of agony did little more than wash over him.

As he finally neared the summit, he was greeted by laughter. He dragged himself to standing and stumbled towards the source of the noise to see the silhouette of another man calmly standing before the origin of the purple lighting.

“You were foolish, master,” the silhouetted man spoke, his voice oozing with a smug confidence, “you shared my beliefs and yet you failed to act on them.”

“Our beliefs are not the same,” he replied breathlessly, raising one blood-stained hand towards the other man, “but it’s not too late; nothing has been done here that cannot be undone. We can still seal the Energem’s power.”

The silhouetted man considered this proposition for a moment, turning away from the glowing sphere. With a hand on his hip, he scrunched his face up tightly, then sharply opened his eyes, “No, I think not.”

Combing a hand through the light blue tips of his hair, he continued, “Why should I guard the power of a god when I can be a god?”

“That power is not yours; it belongs to no man.”

“That power is as good as mine!” he snapped. “Don’t stand against me, old friend. Think of what we can achieve with this power, together. We can rewrite reality; remake the world as it should be.”

Staggering towards the younger man, the cloaked man placed his hand on the other's shoulder, “Our job is the same now as it has always been: protect the Energem and keep its power from those who are not worthy. Nothing more, nothing less. That has been our mission for the past century. I cannot stand with you if you intend to violate this.”

The way he spoke emanated a calming feeling that washed over his apprentice, even now in his most desperate hour. The younger man studied his mentor’s face as his hand trembled against his shoulder. All he saw were eyes welling with fear. It was truly pathetic.

The ground quaked as another tremor surged through the mountain. The young man watched as his dishevelled mentor tumbled backwards, before turning his attention to the landscape that surrounded them, “Look around at this world!” He raised his arms up to his shoulders and peered down at the land below him, “Humanity is beginning to take shape. History is waiting to unfold. Imagine what we could do with that; teaching them what we know.”

The student marched towards the broken man who was trying to simply muster the strength to stand, and kicked him in the stomach, tossing him down several steps, “but no, you still wish to observe and protect and pray. Pray that no-one worthy enough comes along to claim the power!”

Turning back to the sphere, which was now pulsating a dark indigo colour, he said, “Well I will be a bystander no longer. I will not simply watch history go by, nor will I partake in it,” he slowly stepped towards the gem, bathing in the power it radiated, “I will become it.”

With that, he struck his fist against the surface of the orb and pierced its shell. He let out a shrill cry which echoed throughout the mountains as pain coursed through his body.

“Heckyl!” the man shouted as he watched his student become enveloped by a light that burst out from the sphere, before being blasted down the mountain himself.

In an instant, the whole world was shrouded in a white light. Then everything went black.


	2. Chapter 2

Staring down the length of his Hornbeam wand, Riley Griffin centered his aim at his opponent’s chest. Said opponent was on the floor, wheezing and gasping for air. The young duelist had been chasing her around with a series of stunning spells and had pinned her down at the back of the platform. It wasn’t the noblest way to treat a lady but chivalry tends to go out the window when someone stands between you and the thing you want.

There were no escape options from there, the only choice she had was to shield. It wasn’t like Riley to be presumptuous, but he had this match safely in his grasp.

However, in one yell of “Come on, Riley!” from the crowd, all that overconfidence crumbled before him and was replaced by the overbearing expectations that weighed on him. He was the only Ilvermorny student left in this tournament, a tournament that was typically dominated by his school in the past. The school’s reputation was on the line. Failure was not an option.

“ _Stupefy!_ ” he yelled, whipping his wand towards the Beauxbatons’ girl who stood - or, more accurately, sat - between him and victory.

At the last second, with a flick of her wand, the girl summoned a brick wall out of the floor which was hardly effected by the stunner. Riley briefly contemplated the reason for such an extravagant defence - the girl had been successfully using protection charms throughout the match - but put it down to simply trying to mix up her strategy. A little late for that.

“ _Reducto_ ,” he said, waving his wand effortlessly before watching the wall dissolve into nothingness, as he predicted. What he hadn’t predicted was for a stunning spell to be heading straight for him the moment the wall disappeared. As Riley flew back through the stadium, it all clicked in his mind: the wall wasn’t just a shield, it was a disguise.

He hit the floor with a loud thud before rolling backwards several times. In an attempt to make it back to standing quickly, Riley left his wand hand too exposed, a mistake he realized too late. With the sound of his wand falling to the floor, Riley’s heart sank as the crowd rose, screaming the name of their victor.

The over-analysis kicked in as Riley made his way to the center of the stage. What options did he even have in those final moments? He couldn’t have just stood there and waited for the wall to disappear. Nor could he have been expected to pull up a shield charm the moment the wall shattered, that would have taken too much foresight. _You could have cast any number of spells that have a curved trajectory which would have circumvented the wall._ And here came “His” voice. _That way, even if she wasn’t preparing a counter attack, she still would have been pinned down._ Riley shrugged off the voice. He didn’t need to be thinking about Him right now.

What bothered Riley the most wasn’t necessarily that he lost, but that he should have won: the match was his! He had dictated the flow of the duel for nearly ten minutes and then in less than one she had turned the whole thing on its head. One stupid mistake, one instance of cockiness had cost him the tournament.

“Once again, folks,” the announcer bellowed, “Katherine Hillard will be advancing to the grand finale of the International Junior Dueling Championship. All is not lost, however, for this round’s loser, Riley Griffin, as he is still in with a chance of claiming third place should he succeed in one final duel tomorrow. I don’t know about you lot, but third place out of a hundred and twenty eight of the world’s best duelists doesn’t sound bad to me.”

 _You’re right,_ Riley thought, _it sounds shit._

“Thank you, Riley.” Katherine said in her thick French accent, “that was… exhilarating. Thank you for an exciting duel.”

“Yeah, you too.” Riley said, absent-mindedly shaking her hand. It’s not that he meant any disrespect towards her, he just wanted, no, needed to win so badly. This tournament had been about so much more to him than another competition. More than winning another title for his school. It was about Riley being better than Him.

Trying not to look like a sore loser, Riley made his way over to edge of the stage with his head up and shoulders relaxed. In doing this however, he was forced to look up at the audience that encompassed him. Despite knowing that all the attention would be on the duel’s winner, he couldn’t help but feel shame as if all eyes were on him, judging his failure.

As he reached the tunnel that would finally shelter him from the omnipresent stares of the audience, he noticed there was a woman leaning against the entrance, seemingly waiting for him. Multiple things struck Riley as odd. Losers don’t tend to be interviewed by the press, at least not immediately anyway. But what stuck out in his mind more, was her clothing: she donned a short, black waistcoat with a light blue lining across it over a plain white top, tucked into a pair of black cargo pants with a similar blue lining. All of this was accentuated by a black backdrop provided by a long black cape which seamlessly blended with her long dark hair. Riley wasn’t the most fashionable of guys, but even he could identify this look as foreign.

As he approached, the witch took a couple of steps forward to greet him, “Riley Griffin?”

Momentarily confused as to whether this was a statement or a question (his face was blow up on a massive screen behind him with a big ‘X’ over it after all), he waited a beat before replying, “Yeah…”

Inviting Riley to shake her hand, she said, “Professor Madison Rocca. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Her accent. British?

“You too,” Riley said uncertainly. “Can I help you with something?”

“Actually, I’m hoping I can help you.” She reached into the pockets of waist coat and produced a letter. The moment she handed it to Riley, he knew exactly what it was simply by the crest shown on the wax seal.

“Is this a Hogwarts’ admissions letter?”

Riley looked up to see her smiling, “Very perceptive of you. However, more accurately, this is a letter of transfer.”

He kept staring at her, disbelief plastered across his face. So many conflicting emotions were running through his body: confusion clashed with excitement, which seemed to be overpowering his natural cynicism. He had thought nothing could bring him back from his defeat, but this might just do the trick. It was relatively unheard off for Hogwarts to accept a foreign student – that usually only happened under very specific circumstances, such as the child having a claim to British education – so receiving such a letter without those circumstances was an honor. The sudden eruption of cheering from crowd brought Riley back down to reality.

“Would you mind coming with me?” she asked, “There’s someone who’d like to talk with you.”

Still dumbfounded, Riley followed the professor through a series of hallways. He took this time to try to fully comprehend his situation and then weigh up the options in his head. He loved Ilvermorny, didn’t he? He had friends there and had made a name for himself as a top duelist. But the more he thought about it, the more he questioned. The people he referred to as ‘friends’ were really just training and study partners who shared his ambitions. On top of that, surely his reputation at a new school would skyrocket if they knew he had been selected for his dueling talents, assuming that was the case. He was dragged from his internal debate when they finally reached a doorway, above which were the words “Private Seating”. Following Madison in, Riley found himself standing in a viewing box, complete with two empty armchairs. Looking out over the balcony, he had a perfect view of the platform that he had dueled on only minutes ago, barely a foot in length from this height.

A small movement took his gaze back to the armchair. Apparently it was not as empty as he had previously thought. He only then noticed a pale white hand which led up to a red velvet sleeve that blended in with the rest of the seat it rested on. The hand itself was small and frail looking, covered in several darker scars. Riley painted a picture in his mind of what he envisioned the figure to be like: Hunched over, stiff, fragile, barely functioning. But why would a Hogwarts Professor be taking him to see a man like that?

“Professor Simpson?” Madison asked. The name clicked with Riley, yet he wasn’t sure why.

“Yes?” A voice replied. It was odd and Riley wasn’t exactly sure how to describe it. It didn’t sound like a croak and it wasn’t hoarse but it had this old, mystical vibe to it.

“Mr Griffin is here to see you.” She replied, ushering Riley forward. He flinched at her touch, having become so lost in speculation. As the man slowly rose from his seat, Riley got a better look at him. The red fabric of his sleeve continued to form the rest his one piece robe, held together by a silver plated belt. Complete with a shallow hood at the back, the man was been the spitting image of a sixteenth century monk albeit with a red pallet swap. The image Riley had conjured up in his mind was proving to be accurate so far.

“Ah, yes,” the man said turning towards the teenager. Riley stifled a look of confusion. The person who stood before him betrayed everything Riley had noticed about him up until this point: his posture emanated strength and status while his eyes held a sense of warmth and tranquility. Despite his wilting grey hair and wrinkled face, he had an energy to him, a charisma. “A pleasure to meet you at last.”

 _At last? I have no idea-_ Then it all slotted in to place in Riley’s head: Professor Simpson was the Headmaster of Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. He was hit by the same child-like glee as when Madison gave him the letter.

“The pleasure’s all mine, Professor.” Riley said coolly, trying to regain his composure.

But knowing the man’s identity still didn’t help him understand what “At last” meant. Still Riley was left feeling inquisitive.

“Please, sit.” The Professor offered, as Madison took her place standing next to him. Taking a seat, Riley looked down as the second semi-final duel got underway. Seeing the two duelist trading blows, Riley was taken back to his feelings of loss and over-analysis was beginning to loom over him.

“You fought very well today, Riley,” Madison said, somehow reading his thoughts. He looked over to see her watching the match with an unwavering focus.

He wasn’t quite sure how to respond to her compliment; “I lost,” was all he could come up with.

“That does not mean my colleague’s comment was incorrect, Mr Griffin,” Professor Simpson argued, his voice still maintaining its soft and careful tone.

Riley was about to rebut the statement when the Headmaster continued, “the result of the match does not undermine the skill of its players.”

Riley felt his face heat up. While what he had said was correct, it also undercut the very nature of success. So many people had already tried to explain to him that winning wasn’t everything, and yet the whole point of learning is to succeed. They were at a tournament for crying out loud! How could he get anything out of losing here? This was the place where all the learning and the training was supposed to pay off.

“You have won four matches and yet you define yourself by your one loss. Does that sound like a champion to you?” The honesty of his words weighed on Riley, leaving him speechless. He found himself staring at the floor in equal parts shame and contemplation.

“There is a fine line between honoring the past and losing yourself in it; you lost today and you will not become the champion of this tournament, dwelling on the past will not change that, however, it may allow you a richer future, one in which you will live happily with the knowledge that you will not make those same mistakes again.”

He looked up to see the old man looking directly at him. Riley still had no answer for him. His attention retreated into his hands, fiddling with the still unopened letter. A question was burning in Riley’s mind, a question he’d been asking since he’d walked in the room. He managed to wait a whole minute before he faltered and finally asked, “Professor Simpson, why are you giving me a place at Hogwarts?”

Keeping his eyes fixed on the match, he said, “Because I see something in you Riley. Not only huge amounts of potential - I think you’ll agree that plenty of wizards and witches here share that trait of yours - but squandered potential. Ilvermorny doesn’t know what to do with you, do they? They think the smart thing to do is make you like your brother, but I don’t think that’s what you want.” He turned to Riley and looked him straight in the eyes, “I think you want to come out of your brother’s shadow. I think that’s why you’re here. To win the same tournament he failed to.”

It was like Professor Simpson had found Riley’s diary, filled with his darkest thoughts and fears. It was simultaneously torturous and liberating at the same time; to have someone read you like a book and expose you to the world.

“Truth be told, Riley,” he said, returning to the duel, “this is not the first tournament at which we have both been present: I was invited by your Headmistress to watch your end of year dueling tournament in your first year.”

Riley remembered the tournament well. Whilst he didn’t remember encountering the Hogwarts Headmaster, the memories of endless nights of perfecting the only six spells he knew - all in the hopes of gaining even the slightest bit of recognition - felt fresh in his mind.

“You shattered the competition; all fairly good duellists in their own right, and yet you were just toying with them. I had my eye on you from that moment onwards.” He paused, then stood suddenly. “I apologise if I have kept you for too long, Mr Griffin. Please, think very carefully on my offer and above all choose the outcome that serves you best, that is the most important thing after all.”

Riley stood there watching them leave, unsure of what, if anything, to say.

“I wish you luck in your final duel tomorrow.”

“You’re not staying?” Riley asked, confused.

Professor Simpson smiled slightly, “I’ve seen what I came to see. There is no use in staying longer.”

And with that, the two were gone and Riley was left alone to puzzle through the last thirty minutes of his life.


	3. Chapter 3

Sitting against the foot of his bed, Riley stared at the letter that lay at the bottom of his suitcase. He hadn’t dared to move it since he returned from the tournament three weeks ago. Riley had never been the procrastinating type. In his mind, if something needed to be done and he had the ability to do it, then he should do it. It was simple logic. However, in this case he couldn’t even bring himself to touch the letter, let alone reply to it.

But things were different this time: this was the rest of his education he was talking about! Three years of his life! Making this change would have so many unforeseeable consequences. Unforeseeable. He pinpointed that word in his head. If the consequences are unforeseeable, then they are unmeasurable and irrelevant: both staying and going have unforeseeable consequences so they can’t be factored into the decision making process.

But then there was the fact that he’d be moving countries. Moving continents. Even if he did want to go to Hogwarts, he didn’t know the first thing about studying abroad. But Hogwarts would help him out with that, right? They wouldn’t just leave him to rock up on the day with no official documentation. And, even the whole thing about moving continents held very little weight when means of transport such as the Floo Network existed. In that respect, Hogwarts was just as far away as Ilvermorny.

But Riley hadn’t even gotten into the social consequences of joining a new school in which everyone else has known each other for four years: why would they bother with a newbie like –

There was a knock at the door. “Riley, can I come in?”

“Yeah, Mom.” As his mom entered holding a pile of clean washing, she gave him a confused look.

“Why are sitting on the floor?” she asked, putting the clothes down on his bed.

He gestured to suitcase.

“Still stuck?”

He nodded, his eyes still not leaving the floor. She smiled softly and sat down next to him.

“You know there’s no right answer, don’t you?” She shuffled up next to him so he could rest his head on her shoulder. “There’s no solution: you can’t solve it with logic. You just have to go with what your heart tells you.”

Riley groaned.

“I know you hate that, but it’s true.”

“Well what do you think I should do?”

“It’s not about me,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.

Riley sat up straight. “But I don’t know what my heart’s telling me!” he exclaimed, “My head’s telling me it’s stupid: why would I throw away everything I built over the past four years?”

“For a chance at something better.” She paused. “Riley, when you write to me, you never talk about anyone. Your letters are always about you and what you’ve done, not about your friends or the people you did those things with. I know reputation means a lot to you, especially given how people tend to make assumptions about you because of your brother, but maybe it’s time you found some people that really care about you and, more importantly, that you care about.”

“And they’re going to be waiting for me in the middle of Scotland?” Riley asked sarcastically.

“Well, they’re certainly not at Ilvermorny,” she shot back. She pulled him in close. “I know this is scary, Riley, but I think you’d regret not taking this opportunity in the future.”

“So you think I should take it?”

His mom rolled his eyes and moaned, “I think you want me to tell you to take it. I can’t do that for you: it has to be your decision. I know what I’d do in your position.”

“Go?”

“No, I’d stay and spend the rest of my life thinking ‘what if I went? What if I threw caution in the wind and just went?’” She stood up and made her way over to the door. Leaning against its frame, she shrugged her shoulders and said, “But it’s your choice, not mine.”

She was right: Riley was just waiting for someone to give him the answer. And she was also right that he wanted someone to tell him to go.

Staring at the envelope, Riley knew his answer. He’d known it all along. Taking risks wasn’t Riley's thing, especially with so many unknowns involved, but something was drawing him to Hogwarts. Maybe it was just Professor Simpson’s impassioned speech or the idea of a fresh start, but there was definitely something.

With a deep breath, Riley finally picked up the letter and took it over to his desk to start drafting a reply. Several discarded attempts later, he had finally produced a perfect reply and watched the delivery owl fly off with an unexpected confidence; this felt like the right choice.

 

 <<->>

 

Riley managed to maintain his positive attitude throughout the summer; the choice had been made now, no point dwelling on it. And he still had no reason to doubt it was the wrong one.

Leaving his mom had been hard, knowing it would be much harder for her to visit even if Riley wanted her to. While Ilvermorny was still a boarding school, he always knew that she could apparate to come see him at any point. Hogwarts, on the other hand, would require her to successful apparate across continents to a place that she’d never been to before, something that’s pretty difficult for most magic folk, let alone someone like his mom who never took that well to apparition. Given this, they had both agreed that it would be best for Riley to take the Floo Network to London. The States’ network wasn’t connected to the British one, so he had to travel to a specialized center in the middle of San Angeles which had multiple intercontinental fireplaces. Essentially it was a wizarding airport, except there were never any delays or obnoxiously loud crying children, so it was more like what an airport was _supposed_ to be.

Riley stepped out of the worn down building he had appeared in. He had expected to be slightly more impressed by his first view of the city, but it was still a sight to behold.

 _So this is London?_ He thought to himself.

A moment too late, Riley noticed he was standing a little too close to the road and was knock out of his daydreaming as a cab speed through a puddle of water, leaving him drenched.

_Nope, **that** was London._

Having found a bathroom at the back of a shop to change clothes in, Riley dashed off to Diagon Alley to pick up a handful of supplies he was unable to obtain back home. While reviewing the directions given to him by Professor Rocca on how to get to London’s wizarding high-street, he was admittedly underwhelmed by its entrance; tapping a series of bricks seemed rather quaint in comparison to some hidden entrances back home (his childhood favorite had always been the t-rex head that you could slide through in Amber Beach!).

The alley itself did not disappoint and Riley struggled to get all his supplies in time since there seemed to be a fascinating new shop on every street corner. From the oriental theming of Watanabe’s Wands to Circuit’s Owl Emporium this place had it all. As ten o’clock arrived, Riley was forced to use every bit of self-control in his body to drag himself to Kings Cross, but promised to himself that he would return one day and explore the alley in its entirety.

With fresh clothes and new books in hand, Riley followed the trail of students through to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters and then onto the scarlet steam-engine that awaited them there. Things had been simple enough until now, but this was where he faced his first real challenge: where to sit. Riley had run the problem through his brain and concluded that now was not the best time to meet new people; they had just come back from summer and their first priority would be catching up with their friends. They had no time for him.

So he set out for an empty compartment, however, had little luck and eventually made peace with the fact that he would have to share with at least one other human being. He seemed to be in luck as the first compartment he came across was occupied only by one blonde girl who was heavily invested in a book.

Knocking at the door, Riley asked, “Sorry, do you mind if sit here? Everywhere else is taken.”

She smiled softly and shrugged her shoulders, “Can’t see why not.”

Having placed his luggage on the overhead storage, Riley pulled out his own book, _The Art of Timing_ by Wesley Collins, and prepared himself for the long journey. Around half an hour into the journey however, he found that he couldn’t quite get stuck into the book as he kept glancing up at girl over from him. She was alone but didn’t come across as the kind of girl who was a loner. She looked just like your stereotypical popular girl: a stylish white denim jacket (or at least Riley assumed it was stylish), a loose grey top with a short light blue skirt and white flats. It bothered him. Did that mean that his hypothesis about people wanting to catch up after the summer was wrong? Maybe they do that when they get to school? Or maybe this girl was just so popular that no-one thought they were worthy enough to sit with her? If that were the case, he debated whether it was a good choice to sit with her as it could both add or detract from his popularity depending on –

She glanced up and Riley realized he was staring. He raised his eyeline ever so slightly to give the impression that he had just been staring out into space and not creepily leering her. He returned to his book, noting that his thought process was heading into ‘Slippery Slope Fallacy’ territory.

At about three hours in, Riley looked up to see a boy leaning against the door. _How long had he been standing there?_

“Hey, babe,” he said, clearly trying to sound cool by putting on an Australian accent, “How was your summer?”

Riley gave him a very confused look before remembering that he wasn’t alone in the compartment.

“It was great, all the better for not having you in it,” the girl replied snidely, “and last I checked, I’m not your ‘babe’ or is that the go to name for all the girls in school, given you end up dating so many?”

The boy was clearly taken aback by this, obviously not expecting such a fierce response. Putting his hands up in surrender, he said, “Well, forgive me for trying to take an interest.” He was still keeping up that ‘cool’ voice, unless that was actually his accent. But that wouldn’t make sense, unless he wasn’t the only foreigner Professor Simpson was collecting. Either way, it was clear the boy’s situation wasn’t the same as his own: he obviously knew this girl so he must have been here for at least a year.

“Maybe I’d be more considerate of that if you weren’t also ‘taking an interest’ in every other girl in the school,” she sneered back.

It wasn’t quite clear to Riley if these two had a history or if this guy was just a creep, but given the way he had just curled his lip at that last comment, suggesting it was true and he accepted it, Riley was willing to assume the latter. So when the boy turned to him and said, “So who’s ya friend?”, Riley had a comeback ready.

“Someone who doesn’t have time to deal with fuckboys like you.”

He didn’t have any reservations about it. Fuckboy was the right word for this guy: from the backwards cap to the shit eating grin on his face, everything about this guy screamed womanizer. Admittedly, Riley wasn’t thrilled about making an enemy before he had even made a friend, but the Australian didn’t exactly seem like the kind of guy he’d want to get too close to.

The boy chuckled slightly and then turned to leave. “See you around, Dowden,” he said, making his way down the aisle, towards his next target, no doubt.

“Sorry about him,” the girl huffed, “he can be a bit of a handful.”

Riley shrugged. “Sounds like more than a handful. Do you two-”

“Your accent,” she interrupted, “you’re not British, are you?”

He shook his head, “Nope, American.”

“Texas?” she asked hesitantly.

“Montana.”

“Oh,” she said, raising her eyebrows. There was a silence as Riley stared longingly out the window. “You’re a long way from home.”

“Yeah.” There was another silence before the pair returned to their reading.

The remainder of the journey went relatively peacefully until a prefect came along and told them to get ready changed into their robes. The girl left, finally leaving Riley to get changed in privacy. She never returned so Riley began to panic as he stepped out onto the platform. In the back of his head, he had been hoping that she'd be able to guide him to where he’d need to go. He looked around, expecting to see all the students heading off in the same direction, however it seemed like all the younger ones were going off one way, while the others were heading off in another. So he just stood there, analyzing the situation.

“You look lost.”

Riley nearly jumped out off his skin, only now noticing the girl in front of him. Or, more specifically, the prefect from earlier in front of him. She stared expectantly at him. From the tone of her voice, he wasn’t exactly sure if it was a question or a statement.

“Yeah, I guess I am a bit.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly. “But you’re not a first year.” Again, Riley wasn’t sure if he was meant to respond to this. There was a definite sense of confusion in her voice. She looked at Riley as though he was challenging her, a problem waiting to be solved. He decided he’d put her out of her misery.

“I’m the transf-”

“You’re Riley Griffin. The new fifth year student.” And with that, she took off down the station. Either Riley's existence had really pissed her off or he was expected to follow. She kept talking as she seamlessly weaved through the crowds of people loitering on the platform, “Now, for your given circumstances there are no protocols for how to deal with you. In fact, while I was made aware of you, I was not given any instructions on what to do with you at this point, so I’m going to have to make that decision. Now, despite the fact that you’re not a first year, you do still need to be sorted and so it only seems logical that you’d go with Mr McAllister. Mr McAllister!” She stopped suddenly, cause Riley to bump into her.

He looked over her shoulder to see a small, yet stocky man surrounded by a group of smaller children.

“You got another one for me, Kendall?” His voice was gruff with a thick Scottish accent which Riley was already finding hard to decipher.

“Just one,” she said, absent-mindedly pushing him forward. Riley could feel the confused stares of the first years before. He felt like that was just something he was going to have to get used to.

“Err... he's a bit big, isn' he?” the Scott replied, scratching his head, “You sure he’s a first year and not just another lad that got hit by a memory charm?”

“Yes, he's the transfer student,” Kendall said, adjusting her glasses.

“Ah, right! Of course!” Mr McAllister shouted, “Right laddie, looks like you’re coming with me,” giving Riley a slap on the back. He winced. The Scotsman clearly didn’t know his own strength. Looking back over his shoulder, Riley could already see Kendall walking the other way, off to sort out another crisis no doubt.

From this point onwards, things got really uncomfortable. Shuffling through the heard of first years, he tried to stick with Mr McAllister in the hopes of blending in a bit more, but found that even then he felt like a giant. The Scotsman seemed to be aware of Riley's awkward situation and offered him a life saver: small talk. Riley could tell this wasn’t something he was used to – from the way he looked nervous around the young teens, it seemed like Kendall was an exception – which only made him feel better; it made him feel like an adult.

By the time they arrived at the ‘Great Hall’, Riley had learnt a lot about him: he had a background in alchemy but had to give it up for financial reasons, becoming a mechanic before being recruited as groundskeeper by Professor Simpson. Maybe he was a bit more of a talker than Riley had first thought.

Waiting for them in front of the great wooden doors was a man dressed in a similar outfit to Professor Rocca all those months ago, swapping out the blue pattern for green. He took a couple of steps towards the new students.

“Hi, I’m Xand-” he cleared his throat, “I’m mean, I’m Professor Bly, head of Herbology here at Hogwarts.”

As he began to explain the sorting process they were about to experience, Riley tuned out his words – he already knew what the ceremony involved – and instead focused on his accent. _How many Australians go here!?_ Then more daunting thought occurred to Riley: What if he had insulted the teacher's son? He could feel a bead of sweat form on his forehead as the panic set in. So not only had he managed to piss off someone before even arriving at the school, but potentially also a teacher. Ilvermorny had been so much simpler.

The door opened and Riley was ushered in. He took one last look back at Mr McAllister, who offered him a nod of encouragement. Instead of being overwhelmed by the majesty of the hall, he was intimidated by the piercing stares of his new school-mates. It was like the International Championships all over again. Judging looks followed by low whispers, all topped off with a handful of stifled laughs; it was a recipe for a nervous breakdown.

Riley met his lowest point as his eyes met with those of the boy from the train. He sat there with one eyebrow cocked as if to say “ _Really?”_ before turning and whispering to the boy next to him who couldn’t managed to keep a straight face either. Normally this kind of thing would make his blood boil, but it just made him want to collapse even more. He had come to Hogwarts with the hopes that things would be different, but he could feel those hopes drift further and further away with every step he took towards the back of the hall. He tried his best to push those thoughts away but felt them gnawing at the back of his mind.

The group stopped as Professor Bly came to sudden a halt. He raised his hand, indicating that the students were to wait, before taking his place, standing at the head of one of four elongated tables. Only then did Riley notice the other three similarly dressed teachers, one of which he recognized as Professor Rocca, each standing in line with one table. Heads of House? Their uniforms’ individual colors seemed to match the ties of the students they stood with.

Moving into the center of the professors, Professor Simpson looked over the new students.

“I would now like to extend my welcome to you, the newest students of our esteemed school.” His voice reverberated throughout the hall, “As many of you will undoubtedly know, Hogwarts students are divided into four houses. This division allows pupils to build strong foundations amongst those who share their truths and ideals: the bold go to Gryffindor, the wise find themselves Ravenclaw, the loyal are taken in by Hufflepuff, and the cunning are chosen by Slytherin.

“This ancient tradition is carried out by our esteemed diviner, Professor Langtree. When your name is called by Madame Rocca, you will make your way over to Professor Langtree and complete the ceremony.”

Riley looked over, expecting to see Professor Rocca move or pull out a scroll or do anything really, however, she remained still. Instead, the woman next to her stepped forward and summoned a piece of parchment before her. Brushing a pink strand of her otherwise black hair out of her face, she read, “Will Aston.”

Riley felt an arm snake past his own as a small boy pushed through the crowd before swaggering towards a blonde haired woman at the top of the steps. He couldn’t really make out what was happening between them. It seemed like the woman was whispering but her mouth was moving at lightning-quick speeds.

“Slytherin,” she shouted gleefully, evidently very pleased with herself. Riley watched as the boy stumbled towards Professor Bly, a dazed expression plastered on his face, before slowly making his way towards the Slytherin table, his confidence seemingly lost on the stairs.

This process continued with each student looking as perplexed as the next. Finally, Riley’s name was called. He awkwardly shuffled through the first years to meet Professor Langtree. She jumped giddily when he approached.

“Ooh I’ve never done someone so old!” she squealed before clasping her hands over her mouth, only just realizing the double meaning of her words. “Sorry! That sounded wrong!” She thrusted her hand out towards him, “I’m Professor Langtree or you can just call me Clare. I don’t really do formalities. We’re about to get very intimate anyway.”

It was probably Riley’s widening eyes and raised eyebrows that alerted her to that innuendo.

“I did it again! Sorry!” This time her hands went to her silver headband, adjusting the long purple headdress that it held in place. “Let’s just get this over with, sorry,” she mumbled before taking Riley’s hand.

Riley felt his stomach flip as the world around him disappeared into darkness. His eye darted around desperately to find some semblance of the hall he had just been in but found nothing. Had they just apparated? If so, where?

Out of the nothingness, a voice spoke, “Wit. Diligence. Wit or cunning? Determination. Determination for what?” The voice was Clare’s but monotonous and rapid. He looked around, expecting to see her but found no-one. She continued, “Pursuit of self-worth, of glory. Slytherin. Motivation. Motivation with anger. Slytherin. Curious. Ravenclaw. Determination. Determination to find truth? Sadness. Loss. Determination. Self-righteous. Insecurity. Hate. Betrayal. Sadness. Determination. Determination to be better. Determination to be better than what? Logic. Practicality. Wisdom. Learnedness. Diligence. Open mind. Willing to learn. A want to learn. To be better. Determination to be better. Determination to be. To be. To be.”

Clare’s voice became four separate voices, all shouting over one another:

“Determination to be smarter.”

“Determination to be bolder.”

“Determination to be true.”

“Determination to be known.”

The echoes spiralled around him until color returned to the world and Riley watch Clare stagger backwards before collapsing to the ground. He stared, frozen in place by what had just happened, as the other professors helped the diviner to her feet, his face covered in confusion.

As Clare regained her breath, the teachers looked at the questioningly. She had no answer for them. Riley began to panic. This hadn’t happened before, that much was evident from the professor’s expressions. Why was it different for him?

He felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned to see Professor Simpson, his face blank. “Ravenclaw,” he announced to the audience behind them. Whereas there had always been applause when a student had been sorted, silence followed Simpson’s words. Confused faces glanced at one another. Finally the silence was broken as one girl from the Gryffindor table stood and clapped. The girl from the train. People quickly joined her as Riley was ushered towards the Ravenclaw table by Professor Rocca. He smiled gratefully at the girl before finding a space with the first year Ravenclaws; he was used to being treated as one of them by this point. Before he had a chance to sit however, Kendall appeared in front of him.

“You’re a fifth year, you sit with the fifth years,” she said while dragging him further down the aisle. He tone had sounded pretty matter-of-fact but Riley felt like there was a sense of friendliness behind her words; she was doing him a favor.

He sat in the empty spot next to Kendall and watched patiently as the ceremony recommenced, Clare slowly recovering from the ordeal. Watching each student get sorted smoothly, his brain was working overtime trying to work out why it had gone so… differently? He didn’t know enough about the process to say it had gone wrong, but looking at the other new students’ “ceremonies”, Riley was definitely an anomaly. As the feast began, Riley decided he needed more information, heck, even a diagnosis if possible.

“It’s probably because of your age,” Kendall said when he asked her. She elaborated, “The ceremony is designed, and only really practiced on, first years. It’s highly likely that, given your age and therefore your more developed biological and cognitive functions, the ceremony simply isn’t fit to accommodate you.”

Riley understood about half of what she said. Hopefully the important half. He was about to ask her to explain when he was interrupted.

“So, you’re a first year, but you’re also a fifth year?”

Riley looked across the table to see a girl staring at him in confusion. He had been aware of the girl gawking at him for the past several minutes while lightly prodding her food with her fork, but paid her no mind; he’d had plenty of people staring at him all day, he was used to it.

“No,” he said slowly, “I’m a fifth year who transferred from another school.”

“Ohhhh,” she said as her face lit up, “that makes more sense. Everyone was saying you were some freakishly overgrown first year, so it was really confusing when you came and sat over here.”

Great, rumors were already spreading.

“Honestly, Shelby, do you believe everything you hear?” Kendall scolded.

Shelby shrugged. “Seemed more likely than a transfer student. How often do we get those?”

Kendall let her question hang, regardless of whether or not it was rhetorical. Riley used this opportunity to take the conversation back to the sorting ceremony, “So has anything like that happened before? Anyone else made Professor Langlee freak out?”

“Langtree,” Kendall corrected.

“It’s happened before,” Shelby said, leaning into the conversation, “In my first year it happened with two guys-”

“Shelby remembers that day very fondly,” Kendall said dryly, causing Shelby to blush.

“Why?” Riley asked.

“Because one of the guys was Tyler Navarro,” Kendall said, “She’s had a crush on him for years.”

Riley was a bit shocked. Not because this girl had a crush on a guy for five years straight but more because Kendall didn’t exactly seem like the type to gossip.

“You didn’t have to tell him that,” Shelby mumbled.

“It’s not like it’s much of a secret,” she replied, “Tyler would probably know himself if he wasn’t so naïve.”

Shelby poked at her food some more, muttering something incoherent underneath her breath.

“So, you get one or two people like me every year then?” Riley asked, trying to reclaim some sense of normality.

“If you mean transfer students, then no, extremely rarely. I think there have only been a handful in the school’s history,” Kendall said, “If you’re talking about students that elicit abnormal results from the sorting ceremony, then still no. Those two were the only two I had seen until today. But there have been reports of similar events happening throughout the school’s history. It’s rare but it does happen.”

Riley sat there, his eyebrows raised and mouth slightly a jar. How did Kendall know so much about… everything? From the school’s history to its gossip, she knew it all.

“How do you know so much?” he asked, bewildered.

“She literally spends her life in the library,” Shelby answered flatly.

“I study, Riley,” she said, before turning to Shelby and snidely adding, “That’s what smart people do.”

“Whatever, Miss Morgan.”

Rolling her eyes, Kendall stood and began to leave the table. “I need to go and make sure the elves have moved your belongings to the correct room,” she announced. She then turned to Shelby and snidely added, “And Shelby, it’s Kendall.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

_“How could you do this to me?! You sick freak! I never want–”_

Riley flinched as a coarse surface rubbed against his foot, pulling him out of his dreams. No, it was a nightmare. The same nightmare. He let it drift away; he was used to it by now.

Rolling away, Riley moaned. “Morning, Rubik,” determining his dog’s tongue as the source of the sensation. Lying in his bed, the gears in his brain finally started turning. Several things stuck out to him. For starters, the air smelt of… nothing. No scent of pine from the trees that circled the farm. No stench of gas from the old tractor. Not even a whiff of pig manure. Then there was the fact that he’d only made a single rotation in his bed and could already feel the bed’s side post, despite having just been dangling off the opposite side. He had a double bed, it shouldn’t be this small. And, most damning of all, Rubik’s tongue wasn’t that small!

All these inconsistencies piled up in Riley’s head in a matter of seconds, causing him to jerk upright, straining to use his eyes in spite of his drowsiness. Seven other beds? Blue curtains? Piles of suitcases? _Hogwarts_. His brain finally pieced it together. He was at Hogwarts. The Ravenclaw boys’ dormitory to be precise.

He looked down at the foot of his bed to see an overweight tabby cat obliviously licking its paw. It stopped for a moment to return his stare, before getting back to its cleaning, seemingly unbothered by Riley’s presence. _Whose cat is this?_ He looked around at his roommates, some of whom he had met briefly after he had left the feast last night, and struggled to remember a single name. _Bridge?_ That was one of them, right? He seemed like the kind of person who was weird enough to like cats.

He took a moment to reflect on his time at Hogwarts so far. It really had been a mixed bag; on the one hand people had been really eager to get to know him and find out why he’d been chosen (not that he even knew himself), on the other he was yet to find someone he actually clicked with, someone who understood him. Every time he’d spoken to someone, it was always polite small talk and it never advanced to anything more interesting. He was probably just overthinking it; it was only the first day after all.

As he pulled the comforter off, startling the cat, Riley realized that he didn’t have a clue what he was doing. Everything was completely foreign to him; he knew he had lessons today but hadn’t the slightest clue how to get to them, let alone everything he had to do before then. Did they even have showers here? If there were, Kendall had neglected to mention them when she showed him to his room last night. There must be a bathroom somewhere; England may be a foreign country but it wasn’t _that_ foreign. Riley wasn’t one to lay about in bed – when he was up, he was up – so he decided a bit of exploring was in order. Grabbing his towel and robes, complete with a new Ravenclaw tie, he took off in search of the ever so elusive washroom.

 

<<->>

 

Having successfully located the showers (only after accidentally walking into the fourth year boys’ dormitory), Riley made his way down into the main common room, hoping to find some clue as to where to go next, where he was met with an unexpected sight; the girl from the feast yesterday seemed to be waiting for him. This surprised Riley as he didn't feel like he made the best impression on her. That, and she didn’t exactly come across as a morning person.

“Riley,” she said, springing out of her armchair. Her face was lit up like a Christmas tree.

Awkwardly stepping towards her, he answered, “Hi… Shelby?” not entirely sure of her name. There had been a lot of them yesterday.

She stood there, awkwardly smiling for a moment before she spoke, “Look, I feel like I might have been a tiny bit rude to you yesterday, with all the staring and the rumours, so I thought I’d make it up to you. I’ll be your personal guide for the day!”

Whilst Riley wasn’t entirely sure about his thoughts on Shelby, he wasn’t exactly in a position to say no. And so, when she took off down to breakfast, he reluctantly hurried after her.

 

<<->>

 

“That guy is mental!” Riley laughed as the pair exited the dungeons.

“Yeah, Professor Thorn is definitely a very… enthusiastic potions’ master,” Shelby replied, equally amused, “Even after four years, I’m still not tired of him.”

“Does he normally test his students’ potions?”

“Only the ones he thinks will have exciting side effects. Me and my friend accidentally made an invisibility potion in second year and I reckon we would have gotten detention if he wasn’t so excited about it.”

“Detention for accidentally brewing an invisibility potion?” Riley asked.

“No, for turning our teacher invisible.”

Riley chuckled softly as he dug into his pocket to pull out his timetable. “Defence Against the Dark Arts with V Rocca,” he mumbled, “V Rocca?”

“Oh, you’ll love her. She’s a really hands-on teacher. None of that theory stuff,” Shelby said.

“But who is V Rocca? I’ve met Professor Rocca and her first name doesn’t start with a ‘V’.”

“Oh no, Professor Madison Rocca teaches charms. Madame Vida Rocca, her sister, teaches Defence Against the Dark Arts.”

Riley let that hang in his head for a moment; two siblings teaching together in the same school, two siblings that were close enough to do that. How lucky some were.

 

<<->>

 

Once they arrived at the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, Riley noticed something odd; despite the tables and chairs being set up, ready for the class to begin, nobody was sitting in them. The class, which seemed to be made up of Ravenclaws and Gryffindors, were instead stood in the corner of the room, waiting. Was Madame Rocca really that strict that she made the class wait for her before they even sat down?

It looked as though his questions were about to be answered as silence fell over the students and their teacher made her way down from her office. She smiled at her class as she stepped down towards them. It was a weird smile, almost wicked.

“Welcome back,” she began, “Or at least to most of you. For Mr Griffin, welcome. I’m very excited to be working with you.”

Great, he was already getting singled out. Somehow he’d managed to avoid the spotlight in most classes; the professor would usually just take him aside before the lesson got underway. Although, thinking about it a little more, if there was one class he didn’t mind attention in it was this one. It would be better if it was for his dueling skills but this was a start. So when heads turned to look at him, instead of blushing profusely and staring down at his shoes, he kept his head up and gave her a small smile in return.

“Now, you may be wondering why none of the students have taken a seat,” she continued, pulling her wand out of her pocket, “It’s because they know better.”

With a small flick of her wand, the tables shrank to about a foot in size before shooting off to the far end of the classroom.

“They know that there’s no way in hell I’m gonna have them sit and write notes while I write on a blackboard. I’m supposed to teach you to defend yourselves against the dark arts; you’re not going to be able to do that with a text book.”

_Really? All that just to prove a point to me?_

“So I can think of no better way to start off the year than with a duel. Our best versus America’s best.”

Riley let those words wash over him before he actually realized what they meant.

“Wait, me?” he choked. All the pride he had felt earlier had completely drained out of him.

That smile again. “I don’t see any other American duellists around here,” Madame Rocca replied.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. “Go for it,” Shelby whispered before pushing him forward lightly. Stumbling out of the crowd, Riley nervously took his place at the Professor’s side.

“And for your opponent…” Riley could tell that she was scanning through the huddle of students as all eyes dropped to the floor - Riley’s pride slowly returned to him; it was nice to be the intimidating one for once – well, all eyes except one pair.

“Randall, you scored highest in the practical last year. You’re up.”

It was him. The boy from the train. He was the one staring back at Riley, his eyes glazed with excitement. His lips curled into a smile as one eyebrow cocked. He was excited about this.

Riley was still dumbstruck. Off all people, this guy was the best duelist in the class?

Randall slowly swaggered through the crowd, smiling smugly, generating one of two reactions; boys cheered, girls rolled their eyes. None of this said anything new about the boy’s character but it certainly reinforced what Riley already knew.

The pair came face to face with Madame Rocca standing between them. It was weird, there was no anger or bitterness coming from him. Just surprise. It was that same look he’d given Riley when he walked through the Great Hall yesterday. ‘Really? You?’ it mocked. It seemed like this was his trademark look. Trying to think optimistically, Riley turned the situation on its head; _if he’s oozing all this confidence, he should at least be giving it his all._

“Wands at the ready.” Madame Rocca’s voice cut through Riley’s thoughts. Instinctively, Riley whipped his wand up to in front of his face. Randall, however, loosened his already baggy Gryffindor tie before casually bringing his wand up to mirror Riley’s, arrogance still plastered all over his face.

Riley felt like he was back at the tournament. He was filled with that same determination, the same fear of losing. He wasn’t going to lose to this cocky asshole, he couldn’t.

“Don’t stand too close.” Riley looked over, assuming that Madame Rocca was talking to the duelists – did she think he didn’t know how duels worked? – but was surprised to see that she was talking to the other students, ushering them back. “You know what Chase can be like.”

_That sounds ominous. What the hell does that mean?_

The confusion must have spread to Riley face since ‘Chase’ – is that a nickname or his actual name? - had started laughing. Riley rolled his eyes. _We’ll see who’s laughing when this is over._

He stared down Chase, who was now standing at the other side of the classroom but seemed to be distracted; a Ravenclaw girl who caught his eye was smiling giddily back at him before one her friends gave her a light shove, pulling her back to reality. Apparently not every girl at the school hated Chase, just most.

“Randall, focus!”

Having been scolded by Madame Rocca, Chase brought his wand up to casting position.

“Ready? Begin!”

Muscle memory took over as Riley immediately cast a stunning spell at the Gryffindor, quick reflexes were a signature part of his dueling style after all. Ending this quickly would save plenty of time and make a great first impression, not to mention the bonus of humiliating Chase.

“ _Accio floorboards_.” Chase yanked his wand backwards as a wooden board snapped up to block Riley's charm. An unorthodox defense, but it was effective as Chase was safely shielded from the spell.

Riley looked over to Madame Rocca, expecting to see anger, but found her looking back at him expectantly. “ _Your move”_ her look said. Was it normal for Chase to tear up the classroom like this? Noting that the board had at least taken some damage, he sent the same stunner three times in rapid succession towards his opponent.

Chase was prepared with yet another counter. “ _Diminuendo Totalem_.” Riley vaguely recognized the spell, however, was confused by his wand movement. As far as he knew, you had to aim _Diminuendo_ at whatever you wanted to shrink, Chase however had waved his wand across his body, the air rippling behind it. The first stunner collided with the floorboard, shattering it, while the other two continued their intended course towards Chase. Riley finally saw the effects of his opponent’s charm as the two stunners shrank to the size of tennis balls upon passing through the barrier. The Australian didn’t even flinch as they struck his body.

Riley was desperately trying to keep his cool. He’d seen some unique dueling styles over the years but none that were this effective. He took a moment to re-evaluate. That’s what He would have done. An outside-of-the-box strategy like this wasn’t going to be beaten by brute force. He gritted his teeth as he looked around the room for inspiration, all the while Chase stood behind his shrinking barrier, smirking. Always smirking.

“Not what you expected?” he quipped.

Riley didn’t dignify him with a response, he didn’t need to; he had found a solution.

“ _Relashio!_ ” he shouted, aiming his wand at the grand chandelier which hung above Chase's head. If he could deface the classroom, surely Riley could do the same.

Chase’s head snapped up, before panic spread across his face – it felt good to get rid of that smile. He dived out of the way, hitting the ground as the chandelier shattered in front of him.

The crowd let out a collective ‘Oooooh' in response. Had that been too much? He was sure Madame Rocca would have intervened if it had. Besides, it’s not like that would have killed him, just a mild concussion. Either way, Riley didn’t intend to waste this opportunity.

“ _Expelliarmus!_ ” Riley yelled, sending a jet of scarlet light into the clouds of dust shrouding his opponent.

Chase scrambled to his feet and cast his wand at the fragments of the chandelier. “ _Leomutatio!_ ”

The ground shook as the shattered pieces flew towards each other, forming a tight ball before exploding outwards. The blink of an eye, Riley found himself staring down a fully-grown African Lion, the disarming charm simply bouncing off of it. It was a sight to behold; not the lion itself, but the fact that, even in a moment of desperation, Chase’s instincts still led him to such off the wall solutions. Most people would have resorted to shield charm or just dodging out the way, but no, he transfigured a chandelier into a lion. Not only did that work as a defensive maneuver, but it also gave Chase the upper hand.

“ _Opugno!_ ” With an African Lion charging at him at full-speed, Riley decided now was not the best time to be praising his opponent, it was time to think of a solution. A solution that would move him one step ahead, just as Chase had done. Rapidly running spells through his head, he struggled to find one that would both stop said lion and disadvantage his adversary. Time was running out. As the beast began its final leap to pounce on the Ravenclaw, the answer final clicked in his head.

“ _Depulso!_ ” He shouted, swinging his arms forward. The lion’s momentum changed in an instant, sending it hurtling back towards its master at twice the speed. _Out think that._

It seemed that Riley had finally succeeded in forcing Chase into a corner; unable to react in time, the Gryffindor was forced to out of the way and watch as the lion went flying past, breaking through the glass window at far end of the classroom.

Confusion spread across Riley's face as he watched his opponent chase after the lion which was now freefalling out of the tower. He did know that it would probably turn back into a broken chandelier before it could even hit the ground, right? But in the moments it took for Chase to raise his wand towards the beast, Riley couldn’t help but feel nervous.

“ _Avium Mutatio!_ ”

_Another transfiguration spell?_

The lion, now barely visible, seemed to break apart and hover gently in the air, the individual pieces folding in on themselves. One by one, they took the shapes of hawks before swiftly gliding back into the classroom, ready to act on their master’s will.

Riley had generally been able to ignore the stares of the crowd throughout the match. He finally faltered as someone shouted, “Yeah! Go Chase!” apparently rather excited by the sight of the American being stared down by at least ten birds of prey.

“Quiet, Navarro!” their teacher snapped. _Navarro._ Why did that name sound familiar?

Riley briefly glanced at his new peers as they gawked at the duel unfolding before them. Madame Rocca wasn’t wrong; there was definitely some mileage to be had out of watching Chase and Riley trade blows. The Australian was full of unconventional, yet effective, strategies and even a bit of that brushed off on his classmates, then they’d be on their way to becoming exceptional in their own right.

Then another thought hit Riley: Chase was an exception, right? The whole class wasn’t as good as him, were they? Having already taken an herbology and potions class with other fifth years, he had all but concluded Hogwarts’ students were on roughly the same level as their Ilvermorny counterparts. Was dueling their specialty? Maybe that was why he had been transferred? But if they were all this skilled… For the first time in a while, Riley was beginning to feel a little out of his depth.

And the hawks leering at him certainly weren’t helping the matter.

“ _Opugno!_ ” Chase ordered once more. The birds sharply descended into a dive from the rafters, letting out an ear-splitting shriek as they did so, leaving Riley precious little time to react. Riley’s brain simply shutdown, unable to think up a counter that would dispatch of them all. He defaulted to shooting down as many as he could with stunners. He couldn’t keep up. Within seconds he felt a sharp stinging sensation in his arm as a pair of talon scrapped along it, leaving three bloody lines across his newly shredded shirt. The young Ravenclaw let out a shrill cry as four more hawks darted passed him, leaving deep cuts on his body before exploding into feathers as they hit the floor.

“Chase!” Madame Rocca bellowed, “Too far!” She began to interject, walking towards the center of the battleground. _Ready to chicken out?_ Of course He’d appear at a time like this. But He was right – He usually was – he couldn’t forfeit now; he needed a victory.

“No,” he said, slowly rising out of the kneeling stance he had been forced into, biting the inside of his lip to stop himself from wincing at the pain, “I’m fine.”

“Riley, you don’t need to continue.”

“I didn’t drop my wand; the duel’s not over.” She paused and considered this.

“Alright.”

“Riley–” Shelby began, stepping through the crowd.

“ _Incarcerous!_ ” He yelled, cutting her off. As the rope snaked its way around Chase, binding him in place, Riley felt a sense of accomplishment for the first time in the match; he’d actually hit him. Now to disarm him.

Raising his arm above his head, he shouted, “ _Expelliarmus!_ ”

Chase smiled. That fucking smile. With the smallest flick of his wrist, he yelled, “ _Bombada!_ ” The room shook as a section of the floor exploded, followed by a loud thud as something heavy dropped into the room below. As the dust settled, Riley directed his wand to where he expected his opponent to be, only to find a gaping hole in the floorboards. _Had he really just-? Surely there were easier ways to-? Just to escape a-?_ Riley was completely dumbfounded as each thought collided into the next.

Remaining cautious, Riley crept over to the site of the explosion, gritting his teeth with each step, his body still screaming at him from its many lacerations. A scream of pain. A determination to succeed. As he knelt to peer down into the crater, a couple of boards which had been on the brink of collapse gave way and tumbled downwards, causing Riley to jerk back slightly, much to the amusement of a handful of his peers. Once he finally deemed the surrounding area as stable, he looked down into the dark pit in which he had lost his opponent. Lit only by a small circle of natural light which seeped in from above, Riley could just about make out the outline of a stack of brooms and a number of shelves lined with what he recognized to be broom polishes. No sign of Chase. Was he going to have to jump down there himself?

He turned to look at his professor for guidance. Whilst the match had long since gone outside the parameters of what Riley considered to be a ‘standard’ duel, this was a whole different matter; who knew what sort of state Chase was in right now. She shrugged and curled her lip as if to say ‘Maybe you should find out.’

Riley was preparing to jump down into the hole when he heard, “ _Ancoras!_ ” He found himself unable to move as white light emerged from the darkness and penetrated his body. He tried to squirm as whilst not painful, the sensation was uncomfortable, but found it impossible; he was fixed in this position. He felt his body being dragged forwards as something rushed towards him from out of the pit. In a flash his eyes were met with Chase’s, his wand now digging into his stomach in the exact spot where Riley had felt the white light hit him.

“Sorry about this, but one of us has to win,” he whispered, his voice dripping with confidence, “besides, I’m not gonna get a date with that cute Ravenclaw girl if I lose.”

Riley was panicking. Riley doesn’t do ‘panicking’, not in the heat of battle. A temporary slip of confidence, sure, but never a full on panic. There was no way out of this. He couldn’t move a single muscle. If Chase wanted he could just wrestle his wand out of his hand and that would be it. The duel over. But instead he just hovered there, floating above the crack in the floor thanks to his grappling charm. Why?

“Just so you know, what happens next, it’s not ‘cos of what you said on the train yesterday,” he continued, “it’s ‘cos I think you need to lighten up a little.”

_What–?_

“ _Stupefy!_ ” he roared. Riley flew backwards, desperately trying to contort his body in an attempt to make his inevitable landing softer. As he tumbled along the floor, he grunted sharply as he rolled over each of his injuries over and over again.

“ _Gravitas!_ ” Riley was shocked back into reality by the thump of a beam collapsing mere inches away from his arm. He looked up to see various sections of the roof falling towards him. He scrambled to his feet and launched himself forwards, instinctively surmising it to be the safest area: Chase wasn’t exactly going to drop a brick on his own head.

He came to a halt as he found Chase’s wand pointing at his chest, less than a foot way. There was a beat. Chase smiled smugly before he cast his spell. In the chaos of everything Riley hadn’t even heard the spell the Australian had cast on him. At first he thought maybe he hadn’t. Despite having seen his wand move, Riley couldn’t feel anything; he wasn’t flying across the classroom and he could feel his wand in his hand still. Perhaps he had miscast. But then the sensation began to creep up on him. He felt in his leg first and shivered slightly as it glided upwards towards his stomach. He knew exactly what spell Chase had used. No. No, this couldn’t be happening. He tensed his entire body. He couldn’t let it beat him. This was something he could fight if he could just control his body. It had moved to his right arm and Riley could feel his hand trembling. He double his effort to keep his grip on his wand but he could feel his fingers slip one by one. No! No! NO!

He couldn’t hold it any longer: his knees buckled and his body collapsed to the floor as the laughter finally escaped from his body. Except what came out of his mouth wasn’t laughter, it was more akin to a roar of pain or intense agony. Riley could feel tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. He had failed. The one thing he had come to this school to do and he had already been beaten. He was humiliated. Beaten by a tickling charm…

When the pain finally ended, Riley looked over to see his Hornbeam wand rolling on the floor next to him. He heard footsteps and rolled over to the other side to see Shelby running over to him. She knelt down to ask, “Are you alright?” It was a stupid question. Just from the way she said it, Riley could tell she knew he wasn’t.

He breathed deeply before lying, “Yeah, fine.” It was what she wanted to hear. He let her help him up before she handed him his wand and ushering him back to where his peers were standing. Madame Rocca had been talking for a while now, but Riley had tuned her out. Instead he focused on his opponent, the victor of the duel. True to his word, he found the Gryffindor continuing his conversation with the Ravenclaw girl he’d been talking to before the duel began. Rage bubbled in Riley’s stomach; he’d been humiliated just so this guy could get a date? If he didn’t hate Chase before the duel, he sure did now.

“Riley.” The sudden appearance of Madame Rocca in front of him pulled him back into reality.

“Sorry, professor. I was just…” he trailed off.

“Watkins, take Griffin to the Hospital Wing.”

“I’m fine –” His argument was cut short by surge of pain as Madame Rocca jabbed his ribs with her wand.

“No, you’re not. You’re a mess. Get yourself cleaned up,” she ordered. Admitting defeat, Riley hobbled off with Shelby before Madame Rocca added, “And well done today, Riley. You did good.”

Despite the sincerity of her tone, Riley doubted her words and brushed them off with a half-hearted smile. Apparently false compliments were a Rocca specialty.


	5. Chapter 5

An eerie silence filled the Hospital Wing. It was uncharacteristically empty, the soft tapping of rain against the windows filling the sound vacuum.

Riley winced as he ran his fingers across the tears in his shirt, brushing against his cuts as they began to scab.

“Stop touching them!” Shelby said, batting his hand away. She’d been fawning over him for the past hour as he lay in the hospital bed. He’d asked her to leave several times, said that she didn’t need to be here, that he was fine, but she was dead set on waiting with him. She claimed it was all part of being a good friend and guide, apparently unbothered by the prospect of missing class.

“What would I do if something happened to you and I wasn’t here?” she asked for the seventh – yes, Riley was keeping track – time since they’d got here.

Keeping to the script they seemed to have established over the past hour, Riley reminded her that they were in a hospital wing; what was going to happen to him that the nurse couldn’t deal with? As it had done the past seven times, this prompted Shelby to go off on a rant about how people shouldn’t underestimate her and that she was actually more capable than everyone thinks she is, giving him some time to clear his head.

But for the first time, Riley found that he didn’t want to think about the duel. No matter how badly he was beaten in the past, his mind naturally drifted to analysis – no matter how bitter he might find himself afterwards, he knew there was more to be gained from losing than winning. But no, he found memories of the match slipping away from him. In their place were images of Chase, smirking, gloating, bathing in the attention. His hands running through his dark brown hair, feigning modesty as he chats to some doe-eyed damsel who doesn’t know any better. It was driving him insane. Sure, Riley lost every so often, but it was always to witches and wizards he respected, not to philanderers who don’t even take it seriously.

“Tell me about him,” Riley said, interrupting Shelby mid-flow.

She cocked an eyebrow. “Who?”

“Chase Randall. Who is he?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “What don’t you know already? He’s a fifth year Gryffindor seeker with a reputation for being a massive flirt and pretty good duellist.”

“Pretty good?”

“Well… pretty amazing.”

Her answer left him feeling disappointed. He was hoping that there was some kind of depth to him; a tragic backstory, a tragic present, something that Riley could use to rationalize what he saw as a façade of some sort. But it looked like Chase was as shallow as he seemed.

“Never piqued your interest then?”

Shelby laughed at the thought. “Chase? No way. He’ll hit on anything with a pulse. I’ve got more sense than that.”

What she said seemed genuine, but Riley couldn’t help but notice the way she began playing with her hair and staring into the distance shortly after she finished talking.

“Mr Griffin.” Riley turned his head to see the woman who had approached his bed. She was dressed in the same white uniform as the other nurses but had brown lacing holding together her corset which blended seamlessly into the dark auburn hair, arranged in a delicate, almost crown-like shape on her head.

“I am Udonna. I am the head of the Hospital Wing.” She had a commanding presence yet was softly spoken. Her voice had a sort of enchanting tone to it. Riley imagined that would be what Professor Simpson would sound like if he was a woman.

“My assistants told me you are suffering multiple lacerations from a duel,” she said, moving closer to inspect the damage before turning to Shelby and adding, “I’m assuming you had your first class with Madame Rocca?”

Shelby nodded then recoiled slightly as Udonna lifted Riley’s top to reveal the extent of his injuries.

“Honestly, I have no clue where she gets such a wild approach from. I can’t argue with her results but it’s certainly not the way I taught her,” she continued, casting some sort of healing charm on Riley’s cuts as she did.

“You taught Madame Rocca?” Riley asked, trying his best not to squirm from the tingling sensation the spell was causing in his stomach.

“Oh, yes. I taught all the housemasters.”

“But you’re the nurse, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but before that I taught all manner of subjects: charms, potions, herbology. In years past, back when they first arrived here, the students would have a single professor who would teach them every subject until they left the school. Of course the system had to be amended when electives were brought in; it would have needed professors to be teaching two classes at once which, while possible, did get very tiring.”

“So you became the nurse?”

“Not immediately. I settled down in divination for a while until Professor Langtree was ready to take over.” She moved over to the wounds on Riley’s arm. “Now, I do have to ask, Mr Griffin, the cuts on your body, they appear to be caused by bird talons; how on Earth did you manage that in a Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson?”

Shelby answered before he even had the chance to explain. “Randall.”

Udonna rolled her eyes – that seemed to be the usual response to his name. “I swear, I get a new patient every week thanks to that boy.”

“You mean, he sends a lot of students up here?” Riley frowned.

“Well half the time he is the patient,” she said dryly, “it seems that whenever someone gets into a duel with him, at least one of them is going to end up in one of these beds.”

She leaned back to admire her work; Riley hadn’t even noticed, but she had healed his cuts, stitched up his clothes and removed the blood stains for good measure.

“There, you’re as good as new, my child.”

Riley stiffened at the condescending remark but decided not to call her out on it; you couldn’t really have a go at a nurse after all. Besides, he had more pressing issues at hand.

The moment Udonna walked away, he sprang out of bed and made a beeline for the exit.

“Where are you going?” Shelby asked, hurrying to catch up to him.

“She said I was fine,” he replied, his pace never faltering.

Shelby stepped in front of him, blocking his path. With her hands poised on her hips and eyebrow cocked as though Riley had just offended her, she said, “Riley, you just got out of the hospital wing! Yeah, she might have dismissed you, but that doesn’t mean you should be rushing off to God-knows-where the instant she discharges you. You just got your butt kicked and now you’re charging off. Why?”

“You’ll see,” he mumbled, pushing past her. He didn’t intend to offend her and it was nice that she cared considering they had only met yesterday, but he only had one thing on his mind in that moment.

 

<<->>

 

Students were bustling out of the Great Hall when the pair arrived. As Riley pushed open the oversized doors, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Really? We ran all the way over here just for food?” Shelby asked, peeved.

“We’re not getting food.”

“We’re not even getting food?” she whined. He ignored her complaint; he had found his target.

“Randall!” he shouted, getting the Gryffindor’s attention away from the blonde he’d decided he was having for dinner.

Looking over his shoulder, he quipped, “Oh, Griffin! Made it out of the Hospital Wing alright then?”

Riley ignored his false sympathy.

“I want a rematch,” he stated, staring Chase down fiercely.

Chase relaxed, leaning backwards, hand placed at the back of his head. Grinning, he replied, “Couldn’t get enough the first time, could ya, mate?”

Riley didn’t respond. Chase took this as in invitation to continue, “When?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere discrete. Dueling’s banned on campus.”

Chase laughed. “Someone’s read up on the rules.”

“You could go down by The Garage, near the Briar Woods?” the boy next to him chimed in. The same boy who had cheered on Chase during their duel.

Riley turn his head to Shelby, giving her a look of confusion.

“Oh, the garage is what we call the room where Mr McAllister fixes up all these contraptions. It’s pretty out of the way so no-one should see you,” she said.

“Would have to be after hours though,” Chase taunted, “wouldn’t want to get caught now, would we?”

“Bring a second,” Riley said sternly.

“Riley!” Shelby gasped.

“A second? Mate, how serious are we getting?”

“I’m not holding back this time,” he added, his eyes narrowing as he glared at his opponent. It wasn’t true, of course; he’d given their duel everything he had and had still lost, but he was hoping that motivation would give him the edge he needed.

“Oh yeah, ‘cos you were just holding back last time,” Chase laughed, “So anything goes? All magic now included?”

Riley nodded. “Nine PM sharp. You in?”

Chase paused, considering the challenge. “Why not? Should be fun,” he said with a smile.

“Good.” Riley stood there, awkwardly. He wasn’t really sure what to do. He hadn’t thought this far ahead. He started to leave, only to notice that Shelby wasn’t following. He turned to see her glued to the spot, smiling – practically drooling – in Chase’s direction. He grabbed her arm and pulled her away.

“Not interested in Chase my ass,” he mumbled as they walked out of the hall.

 

<<->>

 

The sudden sound of a book slamming shut snapped caused Riley to jump. He turned as Shelby was walking over to him. She’d been uncharacteristically quiet for well over an hour now. The book must have been pretty good.

“Riley,” she moaned, “we’ve been here for hours.”

“The duel’s in three hours; I have to train,” he said, returning his focus to the training dummy, the subject of his spells for the past two hours.

“But you’re not getting any better!”

Riley turned back to her, his eyebrows raised; he wanted an explanation.

“Look,” she continued, “the problem isn’t your casting or the range of the spells you’re using. Think back to that last duel: Chase had an answer for pretty much everything you threw at him, no matter how quickly you cast them.”

Riley threw his hands up in the air. “You got any better ideas?”

“Actually, I do,” she said proudly, “you need to pull the rug out from under him. Do something unexpected. Something he can’t predict.”

“I can’t just change my entire style in a few hours!”

“But you don’t need to. You just need a new trick.”

“What?”

“Non-verbal magic.”

Her word hung in the air as Riley considered her suggestion. It’s not that he didn’t know what non-verbal magic was, he just never thought to use it before. It was advanced form of magic, not taught to Ilvermony students until their final year.

“That’s advanced stuff, Shelby,” he said nervously, “I dunno…”

“What have you got to lose?”

The question was supposed to be rhetorical, but Riley quickly shut her down with, “A duel.”

She groaned. “Just take a look at this,” she said, thrusting the book that had captivated her for the past hour into his hands, “it explains it all pretty well. I’m gonna go get dinner, but I’ll be back in time for the duel.”

As she left, Riley couldn’t ignore the hope flickering in his chest; if he could master this new art, it could be just the thing he needed to get the edge over his opponent.

 

<<->>

 

It wasn’t going well. At all.

Riley had half an hour before he was expected to be down by The garage and he still hadn’t managed to cast a spell without the incantation. Not even a single fluke or any sort of indication that his wand was responding to him.

It made no sense. Riley was doing exactly what Shelby’s book was telling him to do: he was repeating the incantation in his head, he was over-exaggerating his wand movements, even mouthing the words in a desperate attempt to produce a result.

Frustrated, Riley chucked the book across the room, running his hands through his hair as he heard it skid across the wooden floor. Why was this so difficult? By Hogwarts’ standards he was only a year from learning it, and, being third best duelist in the world, you would have thought that Riley would be at least a year ahead.

Turning round, Riley found a pair of shoes where he had expected to see the book. His eyes darted upwards where they met with a familiar pair of green eyes. The girl from the Hogwarts Express.

“Hey,” Riley said as the initial shock wore off.

She didn’t respond, her eyes fixed on Shelby’s book, studying it as though it held some deeper meaning.

“ _Between the Words: A Guide to Advanced Magic,”_ she read. She looked up, brushing her perfectly straight blonde hair out of her face to make eye contact with Riley. “What’s a fifth year doing with a book like this?”

Riley stuttered slightly; it looks like they were skipping the formalities.

“I’m learning non-verbal magic,” he sighed, “or at least I’m trying.”

“No luck?” she said, smiling softly. The way she did so was beautiful; her eyes were almost twinkling. Not that Riley was interested, but it was objectively true; she’d win most boys over with that face. But Riley wasn’t most boys. Nevertheless, her voice sent a chill down his spine.

“No, not yet.”

She began to close the distance between them. “Close your eyes.”

Riley protested but she put a finger over his lips and let out a gentle ‘shh', again repeating, “Close your eyes,” this time in a whisper. Despite feeling extremely uncomfortable, he felt like he had no say in the matter.

Silence. Riley stood there, gazing through the darkness he found himself in, wondering if perhaps the girl was pulling a prank and had left him standing stupidly with his eyes closed in an empty room, when her voice pierced through his thoughts, “Imagine yourself, standing with your wand facing your target.”

He went to move his arm up but was stopped by the feeling of a cold hand against his.

“Don’t move, just imagine it,” she said as he visibly flinched.

Recomposing himself, he held the image in his head as she continued, “Imagine yourself performing the wand movement.”

He did.

“Let the incantation echo through your mind.”

It did.

“Imagine the effect of the spell. What does it do to your target?”

The image repeated over and over in his head: Chase flying backwards having been hit by the bright blue light of a stunner.

“Now keep all of that in your mind but with the wand movement.”

Raising his wand towards where he remember the dummy to be, Riley took a deep breath and focused on all those different things coming together in one image. He flicked his wrist and was rewarded by the sound of wood colliding with brick. He opened his eyes to see the wooden figure crumpled against the far wall. Despite being a wooden doll, it did look a little sad to have lost.

“Thank y-” Riley looked round to find that the girl was nowhere to be seen. Why was she always so mysterious? Would it really be so bad to stick around for a moment after she’d helped? Without really knowing it, she’d helped Riley so much since he’d got to Hogwarts, but he didn’t even know her name. He decided not to dwell on it too long; she’d helped him so he couldn’t really expect anything more from her.

As he began to turn away from the door, Shelby rushed in looking rather uneasy.

“Come on, we need to go,” she said, clearly trying to keep quiet.

“Already?” How long had he been there? If it was time to go, curfew for fifth years would have been in effect for half an hour by that point: why hadn’t the girl said anything about that? So many questions, all of which he figured weren’t going to get answered anytime soon.

Looking back at the disfigured training dummy, Riley was filled with a renewed excitement for the duel; he finally had an advantage against Chase. Time to wipe that smug look of his face.

 

<<->>

 

Sneaking through the castle hadn’t been as difficult as Riley had expected. Shelby was surprisingly knowledgeable about how the school operated after hours and, more importantly, how to exploit it. She seemed to have a lot of experience creeping around the castle at night, but why? Standing just outside Briar Woods, Riley took a moment to re-evaluate what he knew about Shelby: he’d only known her for three days, but having spent the majority of that time with her, he felt like he should know a bit more about her and have a better sense of who she was. Who was she friends with? She seemed to be pleasant to most of her classmates but there wasn’t anyone else she really hung out with other than himself. Oh, and she probably has a thing for Chase. But even that didn’t sit right: why would she want to help Riley beat him?

He let the questions wash over him, pulling himself back to reality; he was over-thinking again. He just needed to get to know her better and ask the right questions if he wanted these answers. Besides, Shelby didn’t exactly seem like the mysterious type.

“Maybe they’re not coming,” Shelby said, staring off towards the path down the hill, the only path leading down from the castle and, thus, the one they were expecting Chase and his second to take.

As if on cue, the pair were startled by a rustling coming from the woods behind them. Riley instinctively readied his wand, with Shelby quickly following suit. A chill ran down his spine as they peered into the gloomy darkness which shrouded the trees which exuded mist and a strong scent of damp. Two bodies emerged from behind a large, decaying tree. Riley gripped his wand tighter.

“Chill out, mate.”

Chase, of course. He emerged from the shadows with his friend from earlier, having now changed into a more casual look of black jeans and a grey top while Riley was still in his robes from earlier. Riley felt like an idiot for reacting so seriously. But that was what Chase did, wasn’t it. He had this infectious sense of ‘chill’ about him; he didn’t take anything seriously so why should you? But Riley had seen that façade break and he was determined to break it again.

“Let’s get this over with.”

“Don’t act like you don’t want to do this,” Chase laughed, “you were the one who challenged me, remember?”

Riley didn’t respond. He just took a deep breath and took his place in the center of the make-shift dueling ground. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Chase laughed to himself, adjusting his baseball cap so it was facing backwards. As he slowly walked over to Riley, he asked, “Why do you think this is going to any differently than before? Humour me.”

Again, Riley stayed silent.

“So it’s not going to be different then?” Chase prodded. Riley knew the tactic; get a rise out of the opponent so they make emotional choices in the duel and not logical ones. Riley had given in to it last time. Not this time though, he was sure of it.

He gave a look over to Shelby, who was now standing with Chase’s friend. They weren’t talking, just standing there… awkwardly. Riley finally caught her eye, giving her the prompt to start.

“Right!” She announced, suddenly gaining confidence, “This is a duel to disarm the opponent with no restrictive time limit.” She paused and looked at the two of them. She gulped. “As agreed yesterday, there will be no limitation on the spells that can be used other than the three unforgivable curses. You must get the opponent’s wand off them by any means necessary.”

As she began to get more and more uncomfortable with what she was saying, Chase’s second took over, “Bow.” His voice was commanding but there was still a level of uncertainty there; he seemed to be in the same boat as Shelby, just slightly better at hiding it.

Once they took their positions, he continued, “Wands at the ready. Begin!”

Riley had his strategy ready: lure Chase in with the same spells he had used last time before switching to normal magic when the right opportunity presented itself. But before Riley could even think about casting, Chase shouted, “ _Rictucepra!_ ”

A tickling charm? Really? Chase was insulting him now. Not by using a simple first-year charm, but by using the spell that he had used to close off their last battle. The message was clear: Chase was implying that Riley might as well give up now by reminding him of his last defeat. Through the blue ripples of the shield charm he had conjured, Riley could see him stifle a laugh. The American could feel his blood boil.

“ _Stupefy!_ ” He launched three stunners straight at his opponent, trying to reset the battle to its original course. Of course Chase had other plans.

“ _Gravitas Totalem_.” A ripple of black energy spread out from where the Gryffindor stood as he pushed his arms forward. The moment the black wave traveled underneath the stunners, they plummeted to the ground, creating small craters upon impact. The wave kept moving forward, much to Riley’s surprise, and as it washed over him he felt a sudden pressure above him, forcing him down to the ground.  He felt incredibly heavy, like there was force tugging him downwards on every part of his body. Slowly, his limbs began to buckle and he collapsed onto the cold, hard soil beneath him. He landed with his face to the side and, through his blurry vision, he could just make out the concerned faces of Shelby and Chase’s friend before, “ _Tenebris._ ” And the world was shrouded in darkness. Not blackness, per se, but a dark shade of purple that seemed to flow through the air and blocked out the view to the outside world, Chase included.

Riley was at a loss for what to do. He was being pressed against the floor and had no idea what his opponent was doing. This was the exact scenario he wanted to get Chase in but he’d somehow ended up in it himself.

“ _Expulso,_ ” Riley heard from somewhere in the darkness. Now was the time to act and take risks. And to test a hunch.

“ _Depulso!_ ” He yelled, using all of his remaining strength to lift his wand high enough to point at the ground. He soared high up into the air and, as he had hypothesized, flew out of the dark clouds that had surrounded him. He stopped for a second at around six feet in the air before he started to hurtle back towards the ground. That second was all he needed to formulate his plan. Chase was about to get a taste of his own medicine.

He spotted the Australian in the darkness from the small flashes of light his wand was giving off as he casted into the void. Apparently he hadn’t clocked that Riley wasn’t there anymore.

“ _Ancoras!_ ” he cried as he plummeted towards the ground. A white beam of light shot out of his wand and honed in on Chase’s silhouette. Riley’s body jerked as his momentum shifted, leaving one leg stretched out, and he was suddenly on a collision course with his opponent. Chase flew backwards as Riley’s foot smashed into his chest. He worried for a moment he had taken this too far but, then again, they had said no limits so…

With Chase tumbling back along the floor, the gravity and darkness spells wore off and Riley finally felt like he could breathe again. He looked over at Chase, who somehow was already back to standing again and smiling.

“Using my own spell against me? Wow, you picked that one up quickly, mate.”

Ignoring him, Riley decided now was the moment. He focused on all the things the girl had told him to and cast. He looked at Chase and… nothing?

Chase looked back and raised an eyebrow. Instead of making some sort of quip, however, he seized the moment and cast a spell on a tree to Riley’s right. A sharp whistling sound caught Riley’s attention and he turned to see hundreds of small leaves heading straight for him at impossibly fast speeds. It was the hawks all over again.

Riley was pushed into pulling up another shield charm in their direction, opening himself up to attack from the front. He could see Chase was already getting ready for his next trick.

An impulse shot through Riley’s head. Not an impulse, an idea. One he had no time to review or test, only to implement. Out of nowhere, Riley felt himself running - it felt like the right thing to do – running straight towards Chase.

The ground erupted around him as Chase had moved on to using a different part of the trees to attack Riley: the roots. Each one burst out of the ground at tremendous speeds and tried to smack themselves down onto the Ravenclaw, but to no avail. He keep powering forward until he was only a matter of feet away from Chase who was now poised, awaiting Riley’s spell.

Still running, Riley momentarily closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He blocked everything else around him out and focused on the spell in his head: its wand movement, its incantation, its effect.

It was the sound of a small explosion that let Riley know he had succeeded. He opened his eyes to see Chase land on the floor, apparently unable to stop his blasting curse.

“Yeah, Riley!” Shelby cheered from the sidelines.

Riley looked down at the Gryffindor, who was now struggling to get up. He raised his wand to cast the final blow, but found himself tumbling through the air, crashing into one of the walls which lined the outside of The Garage.

He let out a deep groan as he willed his body to move out of the collapsed rag-doll like pose he lay in. It refused. He could her shouting but it all felt so distant and muffled. He tried to stand again, this time with a little more success, getting up to his hands and knees. He pushed harder, ignoring the searing pain in his back, to finally make it to standing. The sensation of something dripping down his arm grabbed his attention; even through his blurred vision he could tell it was blood.

The back wall behind him shattered into tiny fragments, propelling him forward.

“Riley!” Shelby screamed.

Back on the floor again, Riley could barely make out what was happening; it was all a series of blurry figures and flashes of light. There was clearly a fight happening but who was against who?

Slowly Riley could feel himself sinking into the floor, losing his fight to maintain consciousness. He saw a sharp blue light heading for him but him but hadn't the energy to do anything about it. His fate was sealed. A grey sneaker firmly planted in front of him was the last thing he saw before he gave in and passed out.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry this took so long to get out! Essays are the worst. Will be trying to manage my time better and get chapters out sooner :)
> 
> Also, in case you didn't notice, I've changed the work's rating to Mature because revisiting my plan for this fic some of it might begin to stray out of Teen territory.
> 
> Anyway hope you continue to enjoy!


	6. Chapter 6

Riley came around to the sound of squabbling.

“It's not gonna happen, I’m not letting you.” Shelby?

Riley opened his eyes to see a cloudy night sky, the outline of the moon barely visible. How long had he been out?

“I’m not going to just leave him.” That was definitely Chase. “He’s my friend.”

“You don’t think I care? Of course I do but –”

“Oh we all know you care.”

Riley looked over to see the two of them but no sign of Chase’s friend. He pushed his hand against the wet grass he lay on and worked his way to standing. “What happened?” he asked.

They both turned, surprised to see him awake.

“Riley! Are you okay?” Shelby began, moving towards him as she did. Riley could tell this was going to lead straight into the fawning from earlier in the Hospital Wing.

“Yeah, I feel fine.” He pause. He looked over his body. The blood had vanished along with the sharp pain in his back. Now all that remained was a slight ache throughout his body. “Or at least much better than I remember being.”

“Shelby patched you up.” Riley looked up to Chase staring off into the woods. His face was showing a level of concern he didn’t know it was capable of. He turned back towards them. “Turns out she’s pretty good in a crisis.”

A crisis? Everything was a blur. He remembered standing over Chase but he couldn’t really piece anything together after that: just a handful of flashes and images scattered around his brain.

“What happened?” he repeated, this time more sternly.

“Tyler… err…” Shelby began, not quite knowing what to say.

Chase took over. “Tyler went nuts.”

“Tyler? Your second?”

Chase nodded. “He suddenly went berserk and started shooting jinxes at us.”

“We were just defending ourselves at first but he just didn’t stop…” Shelby said. Her voice was filled with regret. She was defending herself, justifying her action. Why? They hadn’t… Had they?

“Where is he now?” he asked cautiously.

“He ran into the woods,” Chase said, looking to presumably where he had run through. Briar Woods didn’t look any more appealing by night as it did when the sun was setting. It felt alive, sentient. The way the mist that hovered over the tree roots slowly seemed to pulse in and out like waves upon a shoreline; it was like it was breathing. Riley felt his lip curl slightly. He knew what was going to happen, whether he liked it or not.

“So we’re going in after him?” He asked. It almost rhetorical.

“Yup,” Chase said, walking towards the forest.

“Hey! Hold up!” Shelby shouted, running in front of him, “we didn’t agree on this.”

“Riley’s up now: he can go get the teachers and we can go find Tyler,” Chase argued rationally, “The only reason you said we couldn’t go was ‘cos we couldn’t leave Riley behind. Well, now we can.”

He turned and continued towards the woods.

“You want me to go get the teachers? How am I meant to do that? It’s my third day here: I have no idea where anything is,” Riley reasoned. His logic was sound and he had a point, but that there was more to it. In truth, he was the least physically able of the group; regardless of his knowledge of the school, he shouldn’t be the one running into danger. But past all the logic, deep down there was excitement: he wanted to be in the middle of the action. This wasn’t normal. Riley _should_ want to be wherever it was logical for him to be. That should be his sole justification. He felt a pang of guilt; he should be able to set his personal feelings aside, but for now he was willing to ignore his head.

Chase took a moment to consider Riley’s argument. “Fine. Shelby you get the teachers, me and Riley will go find Tyler.”

Riley was surprised: he had expected Chase to send him off with Shelby. Not that Riley would have let him. For as much as he disliked Chase, he knew this was where he was most effective. Even if it meant putting up with the Australian.

“What? How come you get to go?” Shelby asked, offended.

“Because I’m his best friend. And he wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me.”

“Yeah, well I’m his… friend.” Shelby realized she wasn’t going to win this battle. She looked at both boys for a moment before saying, “Good luck. Get him back, please,” and running off up the hill.

Wasting no time, Chase took off towards the woods. “C’mon,” he said as he broke into a run.

Riley took one last look at Shelby who was now half-way up the hill before chasing after him. He caught up quickly; Chase was fast but Riley was trained.

If they were going after Tyler, Riley was going to need some information. “How long was I out,” he asked, now running parallel to Chase.

“Not long. ‘Bout half an hour.”

“Did Tyler say anything while he was attacking us?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Was there anyone else nearby? Standing in the woods maybe?”

“I don’t know. I was a little busy saving your butt.” From the way he spoke Chase seemed to be getting more and more frustrated, which was only compounded by how breathless he was getting. He had been sprinting for about five minutes at this point. Riley could tell Chase was in pretty decent shape but it was clear he didn’t get there through running.

Chase began to slow as they entered a clearing. He placed his hands on the back of his head and walked around slowly, regaining his breath.

“Which way?” Riley asked, surveying the area. The clearing was drenched in the white glow of moonlight with a large tree stump in center which Chase had sat down on. Dust twinkled in the air as Riley made his way over to the stump.

“I dunno,” he replied, breathlessly. Riley had guessed as much. Clearly being so impulsive had its flaws. Luckily Riley had a solution, or at least he hoped.

“Do you have anything of his? Or something he’s touched recently?”

Chase shrugged, “No, don’t think so.”

“Has he touched you recently?”

Chase cocked an eyebrow.

“No, not like that,” Riley said rolling his eyes, “I mean like a pat on the back or a hug or something.”

“I punched him on the arm before we started the duel?”

Weird but should be good enough. Riley pushed his wand against Chase’s knuckle, casting the ‘Revelio’ charm non-verbally – he felt like showing off – causing his hand to glow slightly. He looked concerned for a moment but didn’t make a comment; it seemed like he was starting to trust the Ravenclaw.

“That’s gonna take a while before it’ll start to guide us towards your friend so you might wanna get comfortable,” Riley said, taking a seat next to Chase.

There was an awkward silence as the two of them sat there, Riley looking up into the night sky while Chase’s gaze buried into the ground. He finally broke the silence. “So you’re using non-verbal magic now?”

“Yep,” Riley replied, bluntly. While it was awkward, he didn’t particularly want to make conversation with Chase, so he kept staring up into the sky.

“Did you learn it to beat me?”

“Yeah.” He felt no shame in admitting that. If anything it was a bit of a boast, saying that he could lean such an advanced technique in the space of a few hours. That and it shut down the conversation quickly. It occurred to Riley that there had suddenly been a shift in their dynamic. Now Chase was the one being chatty while Riley was being closed-off. That seemed about right considering their opposing personalities, but why had it been different only a few moments ago? How was Chase already back to his easy-going self so quickly?

“Huh,” Chase said. Riley wasn’t really sure what that was supposed to mean but he didn’t want to question it. He was comfortable with the silence, or at least he was trying to convince himself he was. He found himself staring at his wand, waiting for his charm to take effect, counting the seconds in his head.

“ _Expecto Patronum._ ”

Riley looked over his shoulder to see why Chase had cast such a random spell - there weren’t any Dementors around here as far as Riley could tell – but was greeted by a giant, silvery beast staring him down. He jumped backwards, his limbs acting before his brain could make the connection, sending him straight down onto the damp forest floor. Chase chuckled softly before offering him a hand to help him up.

“Don’t worry, mate, it’s just my Patronus. Figured I could use it to guide the professors to wherever we are in the woods”

Riley ignored the hand, not with any malicious intent, but simply because he was so entranced. His eyes were glued to the creature as he watched the wispy white light of its body flow around its exterior. His focus was immediately drawn to its massive skull which extended backwards along its body. It was like someone had made a normal horse skull out of clay and then stretched the back of its head until it was as long as its snout.

Riley stared at Chase. “It’s a…” he began.

“Dinosaur?” Chase finished for him, “yeah, I noticed. If we’re being really specific, it’s a Parasaurolophus.”

Riley’s head was spinning. He looked between the Patronus and its owner in disbelief. He was far beyond the point of being surprised Chase could summon a corporeal Patronus; his shock was rooted in something deeper.

“But that’s…”

“Impossible, no. There have been a few reports throughout history. So more like extremely rare.” For once, Chase didn’t appear to be giddy from the attention his Patronus had drawn him, either because he got this reaction a lot or because he still felt the gravity of their circumstance.

Riley hadn’t the words to explain his confusion, so he acted instead.

He focused, with difficulty, on his happiest memory – the day his mother gave him his eighth birthday present, his dog, Rubik – and summoned his own Patronus. A gust of silvery wind blew out of his wand and spiraled at the Ravenclaw’s feet until it formed into his own corporeal Patronus.

Chase’s expression matched his own.

“Is that a… Velociraptor?”

Riley nodded hesitantly. Silence filled the air as they both took the revelation in.

“I’ve never met anyone-” Chase began.

“Me neither.”

The silence returned as the two continued to stare at each other all the while their Patronuses had started to eye up one another. While Riley had always understood that having a Dinosaur Patronus was extremely uncommon, there were a very specific set of events surrounding it that would lead him to be surprised if his Patronus was anything else. He had a hard time believing that Chase could share those exact same circumstances.

As the two Patronuses carefully approached each other, the light they were giving off slowly began to change. No, change wasn’t the right word. It was like there was a very faint, thin outline of a second color over the top of their silver bodies; green for Riley’s and black for Chase’s. His eyes widen in time with Chase cocking an eyebrow. Dinosaur Patronuses were rare, but this was unheard of.

A golden glow from his hand snapped his mind back to the present. Looking down, he saw that his wand emitting a deep yellow light. For a moment he thought this was something else linked with this new phenomenon he was experiencing with his Patronus, but then he remembered that it was just a signal that his tracking charm was ready. He looked around until he finally saw the golden outline of a figure far off in the distance, the light appearing to piece through the trees indicating he was somewhere behind them. It was standing upright yet seemed limp and lifeless.

A sense of urgency flooded back into Riley’s body. “The spell’s ready; we can find Tyler.”

Within moments, their confusion about their shared Patronus connection was forgot as the pair launched themselves through the forest; Chase’s Parasorolophus charging off in the other direction to find Shelby.

A second clearing came into view, though this one was just as dark and foggy as the rest of the forest – because of course it was. Slumped up against the tree lay Tyler’s, hopefully, unconscious body, his torso just sticking out of the thick layer of fog, still giving off a faint golden glow.

Chase immediately ran towards him. Riley tried to catch him to hold him back – it was highly likely they were running straight into a trap – but he was too slow and missed. Instead of running after him, he decided to stay at on the outskirts of the clearing and cover Chase from afar. He watched as Chase knelt down next to Tyler and paused for a moment before turning back to Riley, beckoning him over. Riley surveyed the area once more to little avail – it was so dark he could barely make out anything – before carefully joining Chase in the center of the clearing to help carry Tyler.

As Riley took his first step, a twig snapped beneath his foot, causing him to recoil sharply. He went to go replace his foot back down in the same spot but saw that his foot was trembling ever so slightly. When he put it down firmly, he realized it wasn’t just his foot, but his whole body was shaking. He looked up at Chase, Tyler now half draped over his shoulder, who was experiencing it too. The leaves rustled violently as branches slapped into one another. There were creatures crying out in the distance, their cries immediately followed by the sound of them scarpering off. Whole trees snapped and thumped to the ground. The whole forest was quaking around them.

“Riley!” Chase ran towards him, carrying Tyler in a fireman’s lift. He was pointing ominously behind Riley. A cloaked figure stood at the entrance of the clearing. Its head was down with its hands held behind its back. Amongst all the chaos, it stood perfectly still, unfazed by the destruction surrounding it. There was no doubt about it; this figure was the cause of the tremors.

Riley raised his wand to the figure. His intentions we clear; it was a threat.

As the figure drew a hand from behind its back, Riley shot a stunner straight at it. He wasn’t taking any chances, too much had already gone wrong that night. But he looked on with shock as the blue light of his spell simply fizzled out as it neared the figure. That had to be more than the average shield charm. There had to be a way to –

Riley’s planning was cut short as a sharp force stuck his back and propelled him forward. From face down on the forest floor, Riley willed himself to spin around immediately to see the source of the blast, pushing through the blistering pain in his back. The attack appeared to have come from Tyler, who Chase had just thrown off his shoulders. The two were now locked in an intense duel as Chase attempted to shield Riley from his friend’s barrage of attacks. From the looks of things, Chase couldn’t hold out for much longer; the strain was evident in the way he grit his teeth and was slowing edging backwards. Tyler wasn’t going to let up.

Pushing himself back up to his feet, he staggered towards Chase to back him up but stopped as sparks went off in his head. He turned back to the figure who remain perfectly motionless, one arm still out stretched. Riley had a choice to make; back up Chase and make sure that he was safe or test his hypothesis. He felt his heart beat fiercely in his chest. He’d let his heart and instincts lead him most of the night. Time to let his head retake control.

He took one last look at Chase, before charging off towards the figure. He launched himself into a tackle, aiming for its stomach, hoping that whatever barrier it had up only stopped magic. As Riley collided with the ground for what felt like the hundredth time that night, a sense of hope filled his chest as the forest went silent. The wind’s howling ceased, the ground stopped quaking and the sound of casting petered out. All that remained was the sound of Riley’s heavy breathing.

He opened his eyes, expecting to see their adversary beneath him but found only a black robe. He looked back to Chase who was back kneeling by Tyler’s side. Unbeknownst to the pair, the cloaked figure was now hovering ten feet above them. Riley wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but it appeared to be absorbing energy into a large ball positioned directly above the two Gryffindors.

“Look out!” Riley shouted as he ran towards them. His effort was futile as the ball was already dropping and there was no way Riley would make it there in time. Right as the energy sphere was about to hit the pair, it became shrouded in a light blue bubble itself. It then exploded within the bubble, shaking it violently for several seconds, before both dissolved into thin air. There was a brief silence before a wave of light erupted above Riley with waves of white energy rippling across the treetops. After it had dissipated, the cloaked figure was nowhere to be seen.

Not to be fooled again, Riley’s eyes darted around the clearing, desperately looking for a sign of its whereabouts. His searching stopped when his eyes met with not those of the mysterious figure, but those of Professor Simpson who was joined by both of the Rocca sisters on either side and Shelby just behind them, with Chase’s Patronus towering above them all. From the stance he took, it was clear that the Headmaster was the source of both spells. Riley couldn’t help but notice that said stance mirrored that of their attacker but paid it no mind; it was a common pose for performing wandless magic.

Concerned covered the old man’s face; the look suited him too well.

“Professor Rocca, Miss Watkins, make sure these three make it to the Hospital Wing safely. Madame Rocca, stay with me to assess the area and make sure there is no longer a threat to the students in the castle.” Despite his soft-spoken tone, there was a militaristic quality to Professor Simpson’s voice. It almost sounded ruthless.

Riley nearly crumpled to the ground when Shelby flung herself onto him. Only in that moment had he clocked just how exhausted he was. While Shelby fussed over him, telling him how worried she had been, he looked back at Chase who was still kneeling by Tyler’s side as Professor Rocca examined his friend’s condition. Their eyes met as Chase turned to check on Riley. They exchanged a look. Riley wasn’t exactly sure what he was feeling or what the look meant. He searched for a word for it. Respect? Yes, that was it.

Looking back to how the day began, this certainly wasn’t how he expected to end it: in the middle of the woods, chasing the best friend of his first enemy at his new school who had shielded him from said friend’s attacks twice that night. Not to mention the whole being attacked by some strange, hooded creature. It wasn’t exactly how he thought his first week of school would go. It seemed that Hogwarts would be one unpredictable event after another.

Right now the only regular event he could rely on were his trips to the Hospital Wing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you're all enjoying so far! As usual, any comments, criticisms or just random thoughts are welcome down below!


	7. Chapter 7

The firm grasp of tension held the three students as they waited in the Hospital Wing, each still trying to make sense of the events of last night. Shelby sat attentively beside the bed which cradled a broken Tyler. Each of them had their fair share of bruises, but Tyler had taken it worse than most; a broken arm, cracked ribs and deep cuts along his legs where he had dragged himself through the thick foliage of the forest. Not to mention the mental toll being possessed had taken on him. He’d passed out as soon as the figure took off and hadn’t shown signs of coming back around since.

While the others had agreed to go back to their dormitories for the night, Shelby had been adamant about staying with him while he slept. Even though Udonna assured her that there would be a pair of nurses taking the night shift, she refused to leave his side. At this point, it was starting to look like she had a vendetta against medical professionals.

Riley found himself staring out the window opposite Tyler’s bed, his focus never shifting from Briar Woods. He was completely perplexed. Less than twelve hours ago the forest floor had been tearing itself apart and yet, looking at it now, you’d never know it. It looked… at peace, unfazed. From the Hospital Wing, Riley could make out the moonlit clearing he and Chase had sat in. It was totally unscathed. That clearing had only been a few minutes away from where they had fought the cloaked figure; there was no way it wouldn’t have been affected by the storm or the tremors. Maybe Professor Simpson and Madame Rocca had repaired the forest after they left? But what would be the point in fixing a forest?

And then there was Chase. Riley’s attention drifted over to his classmate, watching him pace across the room through the reflection in the window. Riley had been surprised to find Chase already waiting at Tyler’s bedside when he arrived. They didn’t really speak much, he just confirmed that Tyler hadn’t woken up since he’d been there. He didn’t even poke fun at the fact that Shelby, who was asleep at the time, had drool slowly leaking out of her mouth.

It pleased Riley to see his maturity had remained intact overnight. He got to meet a new Chase last night, one that took things seriously. It certainly didn’t hurt that it meant Riley was right about the Gryffindor having a façade up. What this meant for their relationship was anyone’s guess. If Chase was about to go back to his fuckboy ways the moment Tyler was given the all clear, Riley wasn’t going to make an effort to get him back. But maybe, just maybe, this crisis was the perfect catalyst for the Australian to get his act together and become a decent human being. Maybe.

They continued to roll through the motions – pacing, staring into space, watching with anticipation as the nurses examined Tyler’s condition. Riley had questioned why he was here several times by this point. He hardly knew the boy at all; they’d never even been introduced. In the end he reasoned that, even though it was entirely not his fault, he did feel a sense of guilt; he’d played a significant role in putting him in that hospital bed. Not by choice obviously, but Tyler wouldn’t be lying there if it weren’t for Riley. He was the one who demanded a rematch after all.

After about an hour or so, all heads turned to the large wooden doors as they swung open. Professor Simpson entered the room with Professor Thorn at his side, holding a small vial filled with a dark purple liquid, smoke slowly simmered out of the exposed top. Riley expected the pair to join them around Tyler’s bedside, but instead they veered off to the table where Udonna was seated. The trio were all clearly trying to listen in on what their professors were talking about but they were simply too far away. Eventually they had to give up as they saw them walking towards them. That was confirmation enough that they were talking about Tyler.

“We’re going to wake him up,” Professor Simpson announced, giving no time to small talk. With that, Riley knew exactly what was in Thorn’s vial.

“What? How?” Shelby asked.

“Snide’s Serum,” Riley said. He stared intensely at the Professor, his brow furrowed. “Professor, you can’t –”

“I’m afraid we don’t have a choice, Mr Griffin. Mr Navarro has information we need. Urgently.”

“What’s wrong with Snide’s Serum?” Chase asked.

Riley raised his eyebrows, inviting the Headmaster to answer. He was aware that he was being incredibly rude and disrespectful to the Professor, but the situation called for it. What he was planning to do was nothing short of unethical.

The Headmaster looked away, refusing Riley’s challenge. It fell on Professor Thorn to answer. “Snide’s Serum is an incredibly power potion which can… err… stimulate the body’s vital organs into functioning at normal levels, taking the recipient out of a comatose state.” He was rubbing his free hand against his thigh as he spoke. He clearly wasn’t as comfortable as his boss was with this.

“Or it can over-stimulate the organs, causing them to give out. Permanently. It’s only supposed to be a last resort,” Riley said.

“Which it is. Again, we have no other choice. We need to understand what that creature in the woods was and whether it can still pose a threat to the school. Mr Navarro is the only one with that information,” Professor Simpson said. His eyes came back to Riley’s. He saw no doubt in them, he was set on his decision, even if it wasn’t his to make.

“There’s more to it than that, children,” Udonna said, trying to defuse the tension, “Mr Navarro’s injuries do not result in this kind of coma. He is completely unresponsive to any stimulus and has been that way for fourteen hours. It is likely that his current condition is a lingering effect of his possession. As such, we cannot be sure that he will ever wake up naturally.”

Her words did nothing to console Riley, though he had already lost his determination to stop his headmaster; he was too certain of his convictions and Riley lacked the status to force him to stop. The battle was lost. All he could do now was hope, not that that would change anything.

Professor Simpson nodded at Professor Thorn, before the potions master hesitantly gave the vial to Udonna, refusing to look at his patient as he did so. Udonna was more confident in her actions but not by much. She looked at each of the students and smiled softly. She sat down at the edge of the bed and leaned in to gently pour the contents of the vial into Tyler’s mouth.

The group watch tentatively. Shelby slowly wrapped her hand around Tyler’s. Chase had leaned in ever so slightly. Riley found that he had unconsciously done the same. The clocked ticked slowly in the background. Riley counted the seconds.

A minute passed. Nothing.

Shelby broke the silence. “Does this mean…?” Her voice was dry, almost cracking.

As if intentionally trying to prove her wrong, Tyler bolted upright, coughing out purple smoke. Relief circulated his bed. Amidst all the immediate pampering and reassurance, Riley looked up at the Headmaster. He was poised, waiting for his moment to strike. He found it when everyone backed off as Tyler fell into another coughing fit.

“Mr Navarro, do you know what attacked you and the others in the woods last night?”

Tyler became very still and withdrew back into his bed. Darkness washed over his face, something completely at odds with his usual happy-go-lucky attitude. All eyes were on him as he mustered up the confidence to respond.

“It was the man who killed my father.”

Riley felt a chill go down his spine. How are you even supposed to react to that? He found his attention buried in his hands as they lay in his lap.

“Are you sure?” Chase asked, “You said you never saw the bloke’s face.”

“I know what I said!” Tyler snapped momentarily before recomposing himself, “I didn’t need to see his face. He just had this presence. He emitted… death, like if you got near him, you’d…” He trailed off as he fell deeper into his own thoughts. He seemed completely unaware he’d stopped talking.

“When the creature was controlling you, what did you see in your mind?”

_The creature? Tyler just said it was a man. Doesn’t he believe him?_

Tyler seemed just as confounded by the question. Riley couldn’t blame him. It was oddly specific for only the Professor’s second question.

“Er… Nothing, I guess. Like literal nothingness. A deep sea of dark smoke.”

The Headmaster exchanged a look with Professor Thorn who nodded his head, a silent agreement passing between them. He turned back to the students.

“It was a boggart,” he said.

“A what?!” Shelby spat.

Riley was stunned. He didn’t know what was worse: the fact that Professor Simpson believed a boggart could have caused such destruction or that Shelby didn’t know what one was.

“It’s a magical creature that takes the form of whatever its target fears the most,” Professor Thorn answered.

“You can’t be serious!” Chase was in as much disbelief as Riley. “A boggart couldn’t ever do that much damage. Besides, Tyler wasn’t even conscious half the time so it should have been feeding off either me or Riley.”

“It can do, under the right circumstances: a powerful boggart imitates an extremely powerful wizard feeding off an incredibly raw fear, maybe even the anger as well. If the boggart knows it can create more fear in its new targets by maintaining its current form, then why would it shift to another?”

It was all too matter of fact for Professor Simpson: the potion, the disregard for Tyler’s life and then the way he so flippantly spoke about his Dad’s murderer. Riley was a highly logical individual, but even he knew you couldn’t be this detached when dealing with people’s lives.

Professor Simpson got up to leave, Professor Thorn trailing close behind. He made it to the door before he was stopped by Tyler.

“But, Professor, that thing is still out there!”

He turned back slightly, barely looking at the boy. “We’ll be sending out a group of teachers to inspect Briar Woods and repel any remaining boggarts and I will reiterate to the students that it is forbidden for pupils to enter the woods and that they should not be meeting near the outskirts, especially not in the evenings.”

That last bit was definitely intended as a personal attack on the four students. That much was clear even without the harsh tone the Headmaster had used for emphasis.

“I’m not talking about the boggart, Sir!” Tyler said, “I mean the man himself!”

“Tyler –” Udonna tried to sooth him but to little avail.

“He’s still out there!” Tyler pleaded.

The Headmaster stopped and considered this for a moment, his hand slowly slipping down the doorframe. There was a flicker of something across his face. Sadness? It was only there for a moment before his walls came straight back up. He stared Tyler down, his gaze emotionless.

“That’s not something I have control over.”

“But, Sir, you could just let me –”

“Tyler, we’ve discussed this.”

“Similar murders have been committed all over the country. All of them link back to him. I can’t just sit by idly while my father’s murder is still on the loose and putting people through the same things I went through!”

Professor Simpson sighed. “I need to talk with Mr Navarro alone. Please can you all give us the room.”

Everyone exchanged concerned looks as they shuffled out of the Hospital Wing. Tyler seemed to be keeping a fierce expression but the almost comical way he gulped suggested he knew he’d crossed a line with the Headmaster. Shelby took one last look before closing the door on her friend, his fate out of her hands once more, something she clearly didn’t like.

The trio stood awkwardly, staying as close to the door as possible in the hopes that they might catch some parts of the conversation, Udonna watching over them all the while. By the time Professor emerged, Professor Thorn had excused himself and Shelby had slouched up against the wooden door. Fortunately for her, the Professor had opened the other door.

The three of them sprang to attention, partially out of a sense of respect but also because they were desperate to find out what had happened.

“Mr Navarro has elected to rest now. I suggest you return to the classes you have been missing,” the Professor said before walking past them towards the clock tower.

“But can’t we just quickly –” Shelby began.

“It would be wise to let Tyler get some rest; the immediate effects of the potion will be wearing off soon. Besides you must not neglect your studies, little one,” Udonna interrupted, tucking a strand of Shelby’s hair behind her ear.

Begrudgingly, Shelby led the other two in silence to a courtyard where she dropped herself down on to a bench in the center, arms folded. She was ready to vent.

Before she had a chance, Riley seized the opportunity to cut her off. “Shouldn’t we be getting to class? We’ve already missed at least three hours today.”

She waved her hand dismissively. “Professor Bly already knows we’re going to be late; I’m not in a rush.”

“Well, if you two are gonna laze around here all day, I’m gonna freshen up before the next class. Can’t have the ladies seeing me like this,” Chase said, indicating his unusually scruffy hair. He gave them a wink before turning and walking away.

Riley rolled his eyes. _Looks like the old Chase is back. And what was with that wink? Can’t he tell he doesn’t stand a chance with Shelby?_

Looking at Shelby she didn’t seem too bothered. She just kept staring off into space. Not the most common reaction to Chase’s flirting but at least she wasn’t giggling and blushing.

“There you are!”

Riley’s head snapped towards the source of the sound. From across the courtyard, Kendall was marching towards them.

Shelby groaned. “Please don’t write us up. We actually have a reason for not being in class.”

“I know,” she said, “I’ve been looking for you all morning.”

Shelby swiveled around to face her. “You’ve been looking for us?”

“Yes. I need you to tell me what happened last night.”

“Even the stuff that’s sure to get us in trouble,” Shelby mumbled.

“Yes! Tell me everything.”

Riley was keen to keep the story as bland as possible. He didn’t need to be at the center of any rumors or controversies during his first week at a new school.

“Chase and I were having a duel by the Garage when a boggart attacked us and Professor Simpson scared it off.”

“What the hell?!” Shelby shouted, “That’s so not what happened!”

Riley shrugged. “Yes it is.”

“There’s more to it than that,” Kendall asserted, “the three of you have been given the morning off meanwhile Tyler Navarro is sat in a hospital bed. Don’t play dumb with me, Riley.”

She crossed her arms, tapping her foot impatiently. There was no way Riley was going to get this past her.

He brought a hand to the back off his neck and sighed. “Fine. While Chase and I were dueling, Tyler was possessed by a boggart which took the form of his father’s murderer. Tyler started firing curses at us – right as I was about to beat Chase,” he added – if he was going to be at the center of gossip he might as well make the most of it.

“And then Professor Simpson came down and saved you?” Kendall asked, unconvinced.

“No. I went up to get the Professors while Chase and Riley followed the creature and Tyler into Briar Woods,” Shelby corrected.

Kendall considered this before asking, “Is that why there was a storm around the forest last night?”

The pair nodded.

“And all that was caused by a boggart?”

“That’s what Professor Simpson told us, right after he…” Riley trailed off. He wasn’t sure if venting his frustrations about Snide Serum was wise around Kendall.

“After he did what?” Now he didn’t have a choice. He exchanged a look with Shelby.

“Professor Simpson used Snide Serum to wake Tyler from his coma,” he said, regretting his every word.

“What?! But that’s –” she cut herself off. She clearly didn’t like the Headmaster’s methods any more than he did. “Was it just Professor Simpson who made that decision?”

“Professor Thorn and Udonna were there, but it was pretty clear Professor Simpson was leading the charge,” Shelby shrugged.

“He shouldn’t have made that call, not without a guardian’s consent,” Riley said to himself as much as anyone else.

“No, there’s more to it than that.”

“What do you mean?” Shelby asked Kendall.

Just as Riley had, Kendall knew she had said too much; her face voiced that concern for her. She hesitated before she asked, “How much do you know about Professor Simpson?”

It dawned on Riley that he didn’t really know that much. Despite the huge amount of respect he had, or _had_ had, for the man, he didn’t know anything about his accomplishments outside of the fact that he ran Hogwarts and had garnered the respect of Ilvermorny’s Headmistress. That had always been a good enough reason to make him an icon in Riley’s book.

“He’s the Headmaster of the school and his dad was the Headmaster before him,” Shelby said as though that was all there was to know.

“Exactly, not much,” Kendall said, “most experts don’t know much else past that. So many academic writings about him have been cancelled because people can’t find out anything else. He masks it by casually releasing facts about his personal life in public; insignificant things that allow him to appear like a perfectly normal person but when it comes to his past, there are so many grey areas.

“We know about his parents: his father was the Headmaster here up until his death and his mother was a stay-at-home mother of little renown. He then inherited the school when his father died. If you look through Hogwarts’ records, it’s always followed that pattern: the current Headmaster dies, a relative springs up out of nowhere and takes over.”

While this was all fascinating, Riley worried Kendall was getting into conspiracy theory territory, an area he preferred to steer clear of.

“The school is an inherited property that’s passed down through the family. What’s wrong with that?”

“The thing is that no-one knows about these relatives until after the Headmaster’s death; there are no records of our Headmaster’s life before teaching at Hogwarts other than his birth certificate and a letter confirming the child was to be home-schooled. Don’t you find that just a bit odd?”

Shelby was just as unconvinced. “He comes from a weird family. You’d have to be to want to be the Headmaster of this place.”

Kendall huffed and rolled her eyes. She dug through her satchel to find a book and opened it on the bookmarked page. “This is a painting of the school’s first Headmaster.”

“He looks just like Professor Simpson,” Shelby said flippantly.

“Exactly!”

“So? He’s the Professor’s ancestor! They’re bound to look alike.”

“But not _that_ alike. The chances of there being so little genetic deviation across tens of generations are unfathomably small,” Kendall said, getting frustrated with their disbelief.

“But not impossible.” Riley found himself arguing against her, but it felt more like he was playing devil’s advocate rather than expressing his genuine disbelief. Kendall was right: something definitely was off with Professor Simpson. It might just be that he was biased against him, having just argued with the Professor, but Kendall’s evidence seemed to add up. But to what?

“What are you trying to say? What do you think he’s hiding?”

“I don’t know, but there’s something. There are too many coincidences, too many things that people have just accepted to be true.” She paused for a moment before she packed away her book and started to leave. “See if Tyler can tell you anything else about what happened last night. If you hear anything else let me know.”

And with that she was gone. Did she really just assume that they were collaborating together on this like some sort of project now?

“Did we say that we would help her?” Riley asked, scratching the back of his neck.

“Nope but she’s just like that. She assumes she has a natural authority that everyone will just follow. God knows what she would have done if she wasn’t made a prefect,” Shelby said as she slowly stood up, “Ugh, we should probably get to class.”

Riley kept staring at Kendall as she walked into the distance. Shelby noticed the look on his face. “You don’t believe her, do you?” she asked as she began walking.

“Yeah, I think I do,” he mumbled, his brain still processing the information. But he pushed it aside; he had enough to concentrate on, he didn’t need to add investigating his new Headmaster to his to-do list.


	8. Chapter 8

 

A cool breeze whipped through Riley's quiff as he walked – no, strutted – off the quiddich pitch. Lost staring into the sky he had just been soaring through, he failed to notice the girl approaching him.

“Hey!” he yelled as Shelby leapt onto him, nearly toppling them both over.

“You did it! You actually did it!” she yelled over and over again, repeatedly punching him in the arm for some reason. She stopped and tilted her head slightly. “Wait, what position did you get again?”

“Beater,” he laughed.  His words were met with confusion. “The one who smacks a ball at the opposition.”

“Which means I’m gonna have to keep an eye on you.”

Riley looked over Shelby's shoulder to see Chase walking towards them, his hands buried in his black tracksuit pockets.

Riley was a little taken a back. “You were watching?”

“Scouting the competition,” he said, nonchalantly like that was something he was totally allowed to do – Riley was pretty sure it wasn’t.

“You play?”

“Gryffindor seeker.” A smile tugged at the side of his lips. Riley suppressed an eye role. Because of course he was the Gryffindor seeker. Why wouldn’t he be?

“Is… Tyler with you?” Shelby asked, her gaze dropping to the ground. The mood dropped with it.

Chase curled his lips and looked bleakly into the distance. “No, he’s gonna spend the day in the dorm.”

“At least he’s talking,” Shelby said, aimlessly kicking around a clump of mud.

“How long has he been out of the Hospital Wing for?”

“A couple of weeks now,” Chase sighed, “but all he ever does now is go class and ‘train’, whatever that means.”

“Reminds me of someone I know,” Shelby said, half-heartedly jabbing Riley’s side in an attempt to raise her own mood.

“Hey, I just joined the quiddich team; give me a break.”

That eared a chuckle from Chase. He took off his snapback and ran his hand through his dark brown hair. It was comforting to see him express so much care for his friend; it humanized him, brought him down from the pedestal he often seemed to sit on.

Riley turned at the sound of slow clapping behind him.

“Most splendid indeed, Mr Griffin.”

The man that stood before him wore a charcoal overcoat with black leather gloves and matching leather brogues. His hair was gelled back in a similar fashion to Riley's, except not nearly as messy; each hair looked as though it had been manually set in place, while Riley’s maintained that ‘just woke up’ vibe. A small grin was plastered on his lightly tanned face. _Is smugness just a thing in Britain?_

Attached to his arm was a girl who definitely hadn't chosen the right outfit for this bitter autumn day and was desperately trying not to show it. Her short sleeve, white shirt was tied up at the bottom to expose a small section of her pale stomach which led down to a blue denim skirt which barely covered her trembling legs. Almost adding insult to injury, the look was completed by a pair of aqua blue sunglasses which lay upon her dirty blonde hair. As they stood in silence, the man still just beaming at Riley, she tightened her grip, pulling herself in tighter. Probably for warmth more so than comfort.

“Mate, do you know this guy?” Chase asked, taking a step closer to Riley.

“Chase, that’s Phillip Zandar,” Shelby said flippantly. She folded her arms and turned slightly, closing off her body. _Looks like these two have a history._

“Sixth year, Slytherin. A pleasure to meet you,” he said clasping his hands together. The action was reminiscent of a leader about to address their people, his confident smile aiding the image.

“How do you know who I am?” Riley asked. The answer should have been obvious – being the first transfer kid in years gets your name spread – but it had been a couple of weeks now and he was hoping to start making a name for himself outside his nationality. So to say he was pleasantly surprised by Phillip’s reply was an understatement.

“Well, everyone’s heard about you Mr Griffin.” Phillip seemed almost overwhelmed by excitement. “Stories of your midnight duel with Mr Randall have spread through the school like wildfire. So what better fortune could I have than to find you and your partner-”

“His partner?” Chase asked.

“-in the same place at the same time when I was most in need of your help?”

There was a lot to take in there all at once – that seemed to be the theme of Riley’s time at Hogwarts. Rumors spreading about would explain the excessive amounts of gawking and whispering he experienced whenever he walked through the corridors – he was beginning to think these people had never seen an American before.

A small cough pulled Riley out of his thoughts. It wasn’t so much a cough as it was someone clearing their throat, or more likely demanding attention. Riley’s gaze turned to Shelby, assuming she was the reason for the interruption, but was surprised to see Phillip’s arm candy staring expectantly up at him.

Flustered, Phillip jerked back into action, “Sorry, where are my manners? This is my girlfriend –”

“Erin Connolly.” The girl’s entire demeanour changed as she thrust out her hand for Riley to shake. Gone was the shivering mess, draped on Phillip’s arm, before them was a radiant champion brimming with energy. The juxtaposition was scary to say the least. “Fifth year Slytherin, beater for the Slytherin quiddich team, two times wizard’s chess champion –”

“Professional backstabber,” Shelby added. _Okay, maybe it’s these two who have the history._

“-and all around, nice person.”

That all seemed like bullshit to Riley: less than a month in to his time at the school, even he knew ‘all around nice people’ didn’t get put into Slytherin. Couple that with her split-second change of character and Shelby’s comment, and, in the space of ten seconds, Riley was already on edge.

“You said you needed our help?” Riley asked, crossing his arms to match Shelby’s closed off physicality.

Phillip’s smile faltered momentarily as he realised flattery was not going to get him far. He hummed to himself before he continued, “Yes. I was hoping that due to the nature of your duelling prowess, the two of you would be the ideal candidates in helping me prove myself.”

“Prove yourself to who?” Chase asked.

“To what, Mr Randall,” Phillip corrected. He reached into the inside of his trench coat and gracefully pulled out a peanut brown colored wand. As he balanced it in the palm of his hand, Riley was drawn to the intricate stone indents which spiraled into one another to form the wand’s smooth rock grip at its hilt. “Eleven and a half inches of cypress wood, with a few modifications of course. This wand has been passed down through my family for generations. Never has it bonded to a single one of my ancestors. I _will_ be the first.”

“So, what? You want us to duel you so you can show the wand how skilled you are?” Chase asked, not quite buying into Phillip’s fantasy.

“Indeed, or more precisely, I want you to strike me with a series of your most powerful attacks, all of which I will overcome.” Phillip’s confidence was overbearing; you really couldn’t find a more stereotypical “rich-kid” if you tried. So Riley wasn’t sure if he was actually as talented as he’d made himself out to be or if enough people had been paid to convince him he was.

“Don’t you think that’s a little much for just a wand? I mean, if this goes wrong, your life is on the line.”

Riley could see Phillip was about to interrupt, but Chase beat him to it, “I just don’t think either of us are comfortable putting anyone’s life at risk.” Phillip made another attempt to interrupt but Chase cut him off again, “Especially given the amount of near death experiences we’ve been through recently.”

_The guilt card. Smart._

Phillip was stumped as he sucked his cheeks in slightly. Erin used this pause to her advantage, detaching herself from her boyfriend, only to snake her arm around Shelby, taking her off to one side.

_Are we just supposed to wait?_

Riley looked over to see the Slytherin awkwardly smile before twiddling his thumbs. To his right, Chase had started kicking around Shelby’s ball of dirt. _Okay, guess we’re waiting then._

A couple of minutes later the girls returned. Erin was beaming as she gripped Shelby’s arm who, while not quite as ecstatic, was still smiling. Phillip looked expectantly at the pair.

“They’ll do it!” Erin screamed, shaking Shelby excitedly.

Needless to say, Riley was shocked. “Wait, we will?”

“When did we agree to that?” Chase asked.

 

<<->>

 

The next morning Riley found himself in The Room of Requirement, augmented to provide them with a suitable dueling ground: an expansive, dimly lit hall with thick white lines traced the outside of the pitch, crash mats piled up into small towers just taller than Riley, and a tiered seating scaffold which extended half-way up the wall. Said seating looked depressingly empty, only hosting Shelby and her new bestie. The pair hadn’t stopped yapping since they’d left the quiddich pitch. Whatever Erin had said when she had a private talk with Shelby must have worked because her attitude had done a complete one-eighty.

As they waited for Phillip to finish “assessing the dimensions of the battlefield”, Riley leaned over to Chase. “What’s the deal with them?”

“Shelbs and Erin? They go way back; best mates since day one. Literally inseparable. I couldn’t get a word in with either of them.” Riley suppressed an eye-roll as Chase continued, “But I didn’t really see them hang out together at all last year. Probably because Prince Charming over there showed up and swept the damsel off her feet.”

Riley looked over his shoulder to see the Slytherin counting his paces from one end of the room to another. “Sounds like someone’s jealous,” he quipped, giving Chase a playful nudge. Riley felt uneasy the moment he did it. That wasn’t his and Chase’s relationship: boyish banter about schoolgirl crushes. Since when was that a thing?

Chase snorted. “Of him? No way. He’s in the year above. If I had my eyes on someone in the year below I’d get them easily.” As Chase crossed his arms, Riley used the opportunity look the Australian up and down. He was right, he probably could get any girl he wanted: confidence, a strong athletic build, an accent. He certainly fit all the conventional measures of attractiveness. Must be that overconfidence that kept him single (or maybe he’s not looking to date anyone).

“Yeah, but Phillip’s actually _dating_ Erin. He wasn’t just looking for a hook-up.” That sounded better in Riley’s head; it was meant to be a commentary on Phillip, the jab at Chase was more of an afterthought.

“Hey! Why do you think I flirt?” Chase said defensively, turning to face Riley head on.

“I dunno. What you do in your private time is your business,” Riley replied, backing off.

“I do actually go out with people.”

“Really?”

“If you two are quite done bickering, I would appreciate your assistance as promised.”

The pair gave Phillip a look of disbelief. He stood at the far end of the pitch, his arms folded as though he’d been waiting there all morning. Not thirty seconds ago had he been doing press-ups for god knows what reason, and they had been the ones waiting for him. While the excuse to leave the conversation with Chase was a welcome one, the small ember of dislike for Phillip that he had held in his stomach was beginning to flare up inside him.

“Let’s get this over with.” Riley drew his wand up, taking his natural stance. With a glance to his partner, he could see that Chase wasn’t doing the same, but stances and poise weren’t really his thing. His curiosity piqued, Riley decided to use this opportunity to his advantage; for once he wasn’t on the receiving end of Chase’s blows, was there a better time to observe? He was past the point of critiquing the Gryffindor’s laissez faire attitude. It was an approach that worked whether Riley liked it or not. At worst, it could serve him should he find himself up against Chase in the future.

Time numbed as the duo launched spell after spell at the Slytherin. Phillip’s defensive style was essentially what Riley expected it to be: using clever, sly tactics to avoid taking the spells head on. From what Riley had learnt about the house, that strategy would certainly be befitting of its members, though, given that he was using a wand that hadn’t accepted him as his master, it was probably smarter to use such tactics as opposed to brute force. Still, that didn’t stop Riley from trying to force him into situations he couldn’t worm his way out of; if the wand wanted to test him, Riley was happy to facilitate that.

“Is that the best you have for me?”

Phillip had been taunting them throughout the afternoon. Riley failed to see the point. Yes, he was pulling his punches, but of course he was: it was two against one. If he and Chase had given him everything they had, he would have been lying unconscious against the back wall within the first minute of the match. That image was becoming more and more tempting every time Phillip opened his mouth.

“C’mon, Phillip! You’ve got this!” Erin cheered from the stands, her enthusiasm unwavering as it had been for the past… hours? _How long has it even been?_ Shelby was less thrilled to put it lightly. She had slumped against Erin’s shoulder, resting her legs along the length of the bench, tossing her wand in the air for amusement.

“Of course I’ve _got this_ ,” Phillip scoffed, twirling the oh-so-precious wand in his hand, “these two posers are yet to lay a scratch on me.”

Riley felt Chase tense. The sentiment was shared. The pair had reached breaking point.

With a whip of Chase’s wand, Phillip’s arms were bound to his torso as a rope quickly slithered around his body. Taking a page out of Chase’s book, Riley cast an engorgement charm at the gothic chandelier that hung directly above their opponent. Cracks spread throughout the ceiling as its chain tripled in size. Phillip struggled violently as the frame’s shadow covered him. _Not so cocky now._ The sight of Phillip losing his cool was up there with the memory of hitting Chase with a non-verbal blasting curse all those weeks ago. Something about watching the confidence drain out of a person gave Riley far more pleasure than it should have.

“ _Evanescet!_ ” Chase shouted. Phillip looked down in horror as his wand appeared to have vanished from his hand. In reality, the wand was simply invisible and still in his grasp but the moment of confusion was all Riley needed to make sure Phillip truly realized the bind he was in.

“ _Gravitas!”_  There was a loud, metallic clang that could be felt across the room as the chains that attached the oversized chandelier snapped; it began to tumble down towards its target.

Riley wasn’t too nervous. He could see at least four different ways Phillip could get out of this: create a small explosion so he flies out of the way, cast a dimension shifting charm, transfigure the-

It dawned on Riley that Phillip wasn’t going to take any of these ways out; he didn’t have a solution. It dawned on him he had gone too far; Phillip wasn’t going to get out of this. It dawned on him too late.

He tried to raise his wand fast enough, but he knew he was too late. Guilt hit him faster than the wave of rubble that flew towards him as his poor decision making smashed into Phillip’s helpless body.

Erin vaulted through the stands to find the remains of her broken boyfriend, or at least that was what Riley expected. As the dust settled, Riley saw her throw herself onto a still standing Phillip. She violently tugged on the ropes that bound him as she chastised herself for letting him be so reckless. Phillip stood there in shock, his brain still putting all the pieces together.

Just as confused, Riley, Chase and Shelby joined the couple mid-conversation to try and find out why Phillip wasn’t the next in a long line of stains on the room’s marble flooring.

“Hold a moment, you destroyed the chandelier?” Phillip was outraged, swatting his girlfriend’s hands away as she desperately tried to reattach herself to his arm.

“Of course I did, darling. It would have-” she covered her mouth with her quivering hands, “I can’t even bare to think about it. What would I have done if you had been murdered on my watch?”

 _Murdered?_ It was unsettling to think that, had Erin not protected Phillip, the blame would have been placed on his opponents.

“I had the situation under control.”

“You were completely helpless,” Shelby interjected.

“Butt out, Shelby! We wouldn’t be in this situation if it weren’t for you!” Erin snapped.

“Me?! This was your idea!”

“If you had kept your friends in line like you were supposed to-”

“Hey!” Chase said. He jabbed his arm towards Phillip. “He kept taking the piss, tellin’ us to ‘give him a real challenge’.”

“I do not sound like that!” Phillip looked like he was about to square up to Chase before he started to walk away, throwing his hands in the air. “Bloody Australian hasn’t a clue what he’s talking about.”

“I’m from New Zealand, you twat.”

_Oops._

“Watch your tongue, boy! Do you even know who you’re speaking to?”

“Back off, bro. You’re a couple of months older, that’s it.”

“You can’t talk to us like we’re dirt on your shoe!” Riley weighed in, “we were doing you a favor: you should be grateful.”

“You nearly crushed him and you want us to be grateful?” Erin snaked her arm around her boyfriend, hoping that, in the chaos, she could sneak back into Phillip’s heart, but to no avail.

“Don’t touch me!” He shouted. His body seized up as he recoiled towards the door.

She reached out for him. “Baby, how are we gonna get your family to like me if you won’t even trust me?!”

“But you don’t even trust me!”

“Babe, we said we’d do this together!”

But it was too late. He was gone and she was left alone. Standing with three of her severely pissed off peers. Anyone else would have run off to escape the awkwardness. The shame. But not Erin.

She whipped round to face Shelby. Rage seethed from her bloodshot eyes down to her index finger which trembled in Shelby’s face.

“You did this to us.”

Shelby remained blank. No, dispassionate. It’s not that she didn’t care, more that she couldn’t. She wasn’t interested in hearing what Erin had to say or explaining the complete lack of logic that statement expressed. She just walked away. Didn’t storm out. She reached the door and beckoned for Chase and Riley to join her.

Riley had never seen this side to Shelby. Such levels of disgust and pity. He didn’t know she was capable of being so… callous? To turn her back on one of her best friends, crying. She wasn’t wrong to do so, but it just seemed so unlike her.

He took one last moment to look at the mess the trio were leaving behind just as Shelby closed the door behind them. A shiver ran down his back. Shelby had come to be Riley’s best friend at Hogwarts by proxy. It dawned on him, maybe he didn’t know her as much as he thought he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who don't remember (which is probably most of you) Erin was Shelby's best friend who showed up like one time in Dino Super Charge. She was super irrelevant but weirdly iconic.


End file.
